Land use/land cover of the Earth is changing dramatically because of human
activities and natural disasters. Information about changes is useful for updating
land use/land cover maps for planning and management of natural resources.
Several methods for land use/land cover change detection using time series
Landsat imagery data were employed and discussed. Landsat 5 TM colour
composites of 1990, 1993, 1996 and 1999 were employed for locating training
samples for supervised classification in the coastal areas of Ban Don Bay, Surat
Thani, Thailand. This study illustrated an increasing trend of shrimp farms,
forest/mangrove and urban areas with a decreasing trend of agricultural and
wasteland areas. Land use changes from one category to others have been clearly
represented by the NDVI composite images, which were found suitable for
delineating the development of shrimp farms and land use changes in Ban Don
Bay.