Mapping and Understanding the Dynamics of Landscape Changes on Heterogeneous Mediterranean Islands with the Use of OBIA: The Case of Ionian Region, Greece

George Kefalas, Konstantinos Poirazidis, Panteleimon Xofis and Stamatis Kalogirou
Additional contact information
George Kefalas: Department of Geography, Harokopio University, El. Venizelou 70, 176 76 Kallithea, Greece
Konstantinos Poirazidis: Department of Environmental Technology, Technological Educational Institute of Ionian Islands, Panagoula, 29 100 Zakynthos, Greece
Panteleimon Xofis: Forest Research Institute, Hellenic Agricultural Organization “Demeter”, 57 006 Vasilika, Greece
Stamatis Kalogirou: Department of Geography, Harokopio University, El. Venizelou 70, 176 76 Kallithea, Greece

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-33

Abstract: Mediterranean islands contain heterogeneous landscapes, resulting from the complex interactions between natural and anthropogenic processes, and have significant ecological and conservation importance. They are vulnerable systems to global change and the monitoring of changes, induced by the interacting environmental drivers, is of particular importance for applying a sustainable management regime. The aim of this study was to detect and analyze the landscape dynamics and changes in landscape composition over a 30-year period on the Ionian Islands of Western Greece. State-of-the-art object-oriented image analysis on freely available remote sensing data such as Landsat images was employed achieving final mapping products with high spatial and thematic accuracy (over than 85%), and a transferable classification scheme. The main drivers of environmental change are tourism and associated activities, wildfires and livestock breeding which act in different ways and intensities within and between the islands. The repopulation of those islands, after a period of significant depopulation from the 1940s to the 1980s, and the boom of tourism since the mid-1970s prevented further land abandonment and the recultivation of abandoned land which indicates that tourism and agriculture can be complementary rather than competing economic sectors. Despite the significant increase of tourism, a general trend was observed towards increasing cover of high-density vegetation formations, such as shrublands and forests. At the same time, wildfires, which are in some cases associated with livestock breeding, continue to be an important vegetation degradation factor preventing further ecosystem recovery on the study islands.

Keywords: Mediterranean ecosystems; land use/cover changes; object-oriented image analysis; insular landscapes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/9/2986/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/9/2986/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:9:p:2986-:d:165204

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().