Abstract:

The key concept influenced by ecological processes is sustainability, and the relationships between this principle, climate, and land changes are considered to be the most important research topics. Therefore, monitoring vegetation changes and evaluating their outcomes are crucial for identifying and solving numerous human or nature-related problems. In this context, remote sensing (RS), which provides the best dataset at a universal scale, and geographic information systems (GIS) using analyt-ical methods to establish a spatial-temporal analysis framework, are prominent. In the integration of GIS and RS, it is important for data providers to ensure continuity to understand the relationship be-tween the past and the present, utilizing advantages such as data continuity, protection, and enhance-ment. This study utilized the Open Foris/Collect Earth (CE) software supported by Google and used by the Food and Agriculture Organization for monitoring land use/land cover (LULC) changes. The main objective of the CE method is to interpret high-resolution satellite imagery to monitor LULC changes, analyze/query the changes, and create a purpose-oriented database. The Upper Sakarya Ba-sin (USB) was chosen as the study area. The USB is an active point of the ecosystem encompassing agricultural, forest, pasture, and settlement land classes, forming an effective industrial, agricultural, and cultural landscape. By considering the year 2000 as the starting point for the USB, the 20-year change results were obtained, and LULC classes including forest, pasture, shrubland, agricultural, and wetland areas were detected and mapped for the period 2000-2020. As of 2020, approximately half (49%) of the basin is used for agriculture, followed by forest area at 23.7% and pasture area at 23.4%. Around 120,000 ha of afforestation areas were identified in the basin. When examining the land change and major land use class change between 2000 and 2020, forest areas increased by 34,591.95 ha, while 15,374.20 ha of land used for agriculture transformed into settlement areas. Land use transformations occurring in the basin affect the sustainability of its ecosystem. The CE method used in this study has proven to be an effective land monitoring/assessment tool for deter-mining land use/cover changes in large areas and obtaining quantitative data.

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