Mapping land cover changes using Landsat TM: A case study of Yamal ecosystems, Arctic Russia

This paper details changes in land cover types and vegetation distribution in tundra landscapes of the Yamal Peninsula, West Siberia during the past two decades. The new approach of the current work is application of GIS and remote sensing tools for the Bovanenkovo region in Yamal Peninsula, since there is no previous research done covering the same area using this method. The main method of the work is supervised classification of the Landsat TM scenes for detection of land cover changes. The data includes Landsat TM scenes on 1988 and 2011. Technically, the data processing was performed in ILWIS GIS, using methods of image interpretation and supervised classification. The results indicate changes in land cover types in Yamal ecosystems, namely, the overall increase in woody plants, such as willows and shrub tundra (e.g. "short shrub tundra", "sparse short shrub tundra" and "dry short shrub tundra"), and slight decrease in grasses, heath and peatland. The detected trend in these changes demonstrates process of greening in Arctic tundra, which indicates structural variations in ecosystems within the Bovanenkovo district. These changes can be explained by the complex climatic and ecological processes as well as landslide formation in the past.