ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING OF LAND-USE AND LAND-COVER CONVERSION (2000-2017) IN TURKEY USING COLLECT EARTH METHODOLOGY

The paper presents Turkey land use and land cover (LULC) monitoring using the Collect Earth methodology that undertake land monitoring through augmented visual interpretation. Besides, this study is the first to use Collect Earth methodology to examine the 17 years land cover changes in Turkey between 2000 and 2017. A total of 61,685 sample plots are designed to overlay the map of Turkey were generated as a dataset for visual interpretation. LULC classification for 2017 are made according to the International Panel on Climate change (IPCC) and FAO Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) LULC classes and is calculated distributions of plots in relation to land cover and element. Then is computed the LULC conversion between 2000 and 2017 and desertification/greening trends using the analysis of NDVI, NDWI graphical data in GEE and visual interpretations with high-resolution image data. According to IPCC, forest area covers 24.31%, and according to FAO/FRA, forest area covers 28.68% of the Turkey. According to the LULC conversion results, while slow decreased is found in Forest, Cropland, Grassland and Otherland. increased is found in Wetland and Settlement between 2000 and 2017.However, according to the LULC monitoring results, while increased is found in habitat gain (greening) 2.30%, decreased is found in habitat loss (desertification) 0.95%. This study show that Collect Earth is a comprehensive tool for land monitoring and that it has the great potential to be used to assess LULC, LULC conversion, the current status of each LULC class and habitat loss and gain.