Monitoring of agricultural area trend in Tabuk region – Saudi Arabia using Landsat TM and SPOT data

The main objective of this study is to monitor and assess the agricultural land use changes through the period from 1988 to 2008 using the Landsat TM 5 and SPOT 5 imagery along with laboratory and field works. The analysis of the classified satellite images indicated a considerable increase in the spatial extents of the agricultural land use. The spatial extents of the agricultural areas have increased by 10% during the period from 1988 to 2008. This increase had basically occurred on the expense of the bare soils. The results of this research imply the possibility of using the multi-temporal satellite data for understanding the interchange of the agricultural land use with the surrounding bare areas for the purpose of modeling the potential environmental changes in the future in one of the most important agricultural area in Saudi Arabia.