Roohollah Kazeminajafabadi

Abstract

 Gavkhooni wetland is one of twenty two registered Ramsar convention sites within Iran and is considered as one of the most important places for wintering and breeding birds in central Iran. Due to the human interferences such as making barriers, water transition plans, and land use alteration around the wetland, Gavkhooni wetland has vastly been changed. Successful management of the wetland demands for the knowledge on the effects of human interferences on the wetland ecosystem. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes occurred on the bird's habitats of Gavkhooni wetland over the recent 35 years. We used images of MSS, TM, ETM+ and LISS III sensors captured in the growth season of the wetland in years 1976, 1990, 1999 and 2008. To extract land cover maps of the area density slicing and mathematical operation methods were used after necessary preprocessing such as geometric and radiometric correction. To