In order to analyse the function of change detection many change detection methods have been developed to better observe and define change features using remotely sensed data (Cakir et al. 2006). These methods have been summarised and reviewed in Coppin et al. (2002), Deer (1995), Jensen (1996), Lillesand et al. (2004), Lu et al. (2004) and Mundia and Aniya (2005).
3 Research Aim and Objectives
The overriding purpose of this study is to contribute to the sustainability and continued existence of agriculture and natural resources, by addressing the identified lack of information relevant to assessing the sustainability of land use patterns in Trinidad and Tobago. This research project will seek to develop a framework to quantify changes in natural resource and urban development through mapping and analysis of land use/cover changes. Emphasis will be placed on extracting useful data on land properties from remotely sensed imagery.
For developmental planning, it is imperative to integrate various data available from different sources which may be of different scales, format and projections. The geographical information system combines all such data including satellite data, to form a complete system. The aim of the study is then to encompass the following tasks:
1. To review environmental and socio-economic activities from the 1970’s to present;
2. To develop a remote sensing based methodology to map and detect land use/cover changes;
3. To quantify and analysis of spatial and temporal land use/cover changes in Trinidad and Tobago from the 1970’s to present;
4. To assess the correlation between land cover/use dynamics with socio-economic data to better understand the factors influencing changes;
5. To assess how these trend have affected the food production and biodiversity on the islands
4 Methodology
To quantify and analyse the interaction between natural and urban development in Trinidad and Tobago this study has developed a methodology that is schematically depicted in Figure 1. The main thrust in the methodology is the development of a time series of images covering the 1970’s to present. This will be acquired and assembled to depict the nature of land use/cover in selected sites during several epochs. This information would be combined with