Land Cover Change Detection and Analysis of Mts. Palay-Palay Mataas-Na-Gulod Protected Landscape, Philippines using Satellite Imagery

Several studies have already proven the existence of unsustainable human activities or disturbances assumed to cause land cover change on the Mts. Palay-Palay Mataas-Na-Gulod Protected Landscape (MPPMNGPL)in the Philippines. However, there is a dearth of published works on how these disturbances affect the different land cover classes in this protected landscape. This study aimed to help fill such information gap by investigating the extent of land cover changes and potentially disturbed forest areas inside the MPPMNGPL. Using geographic information system and remote sensing, classified maps were produced from Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 images through supervised classification. The study described the land cover types and land cover changes in the area from 2015 to 2021 and identified potentially disturbed forest areas using the normalized difference moisture index (NDMI). The land cover classes identified in the area included forest, grassland, built-up, barren land and water. From 2015 to 2021, the largest land cover change came from the 510.92 ha of forest area in Ternate that turned into a grassland area as reflected in the NDMI result – an indicator of potential forest disturbance. Change detection showed that from 2015 to 2021, the grassland area had an increase of +14.05%, while the forest area had a decrease of -13.8%. Results showed that forest is still the most dominant land cover class in the protected landscape. Further studies and ground validation must be conducted to determine the specific causes of the land cover changes.