Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration, 2025 (ESCI)
Tracking the dynamics of heritage landscapes is essential to understand the interaction between human communities and their environment as well as to develop conservation strategies. Palm trees have a world heritage value in the Arab world, including Tunisia. They are prominent in the landscape of the Kerkennah archipelago, a Ramsar site and natural reserve with low topography and wetlands associated with palm groves. These wetlands are in extension due to the fragile environment and anthropogenic factors. In this paper, we used medium-resolution satellite images distributed free of charge to track Land Use Land Cover (LULC) dynamics in the Kerkennah archipelago, focussing on the heritage class of the palm groves. We present three pansharpening techniques for Landsat 5 (TM), 7 (ETM +), and Sentinel 2A (MSI) images. Object-based classification (OBC) was employed to extract LULC in 1987, 2003, and 2022. The Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was integrated to extract the boundaries of vegetated areas by determining the NDVI ranges for palm groves and agrarian land. Cross-tabulation was used for LULC change detection. The results show that pansharpening is useful for enhancing the visual interpretation in OBC, during which we identified wetlands, salt pans, and built-up areas. The NDVI helped map the vegetated areas. Change detection confirms that the wetlands and salt pans are expanding. It also showed that the palm groves were replaced by agricultural land. The findings of this work improve our understanding of the landscape dynamics in this environmentally and culturally unique area and provide a basis for LULC monitoring.