IMPERVIOUS SURFACE TREND ANALYSIS AND ITS IMPACTS ON KOSOVO’S LANDSCAPE CHANGE FROM 2006 TO 2015

The growth of cities and human demands for a better life have influenced the transformation of land use from natural land or vegetation to an artificial area-impervious surface (IS). The IS is an important indicator to measure the process of urbanization and its impact on the ecological environment. This article aims to analyze the trends of impervious surface and exert influence on land cover/land use occupation based on High-Resolution Layers (HRL) of imperviousness time-series data from 2006 to 2015 obtained from the European Copernicus Programme for seven Kosovo's regions. For the spatiotemporal distribution of the IS changes to be expected, the overlay of the GIS method was utilized. The results show that the absolute and relative rate of IS increased in all Kosovo's districts in four time periods: 2006, 2009, 2012, and 2015. Whereas, in the three periods of impervious change: 2006 2009, 2009-2012, and 2012 – 2015 regional distinctions were distinguished, where Prishtina and Prizren regions occupy the most spatial increases of IS. To highlight the consumption of land cover/land use area by the IS increase change results of the periods 2009 -2012, and 2012 – 2015, fivefirst class categories of CORINE Land Cover inventory from 2012 and 2018 year utilized. In both periods, the most affected land cover class by IS increases was the artificial area, followed by agricultural area and forest and semi-natural area, where wetlands and water land cover classes showed no affection in all of Kosovo's regions.