Monitoring 15-year land use/land cover change in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Abstract

Although land use/land cover (LULC) information plays a critical role in the maintenance of living standards with a balance among the environment, development and sustainability, it remains little comprehensive understanding in the entire Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). In this study, we used the random forest algorithm, Landsat images, ancillary and empirical reference data to carefully analyse the 15 years’ spatiotemporal changes (2005 – 2020) of LULC in the VMD region. Results show that agriculture has been the most dominant land, accounting for approximately half of the whole region during the fifteen years. Remarkably, most of the LULC categories have undergone dramatic transformation with the proportion of the wetland area decreasing from about 16% in 2005 to 5% in 2020, whereas that of the aquaculture area sharply increased from about 12% to 19% over the same period. Meanwhile, there was a marked increase in the area of perennial crops and built-up lands. These results of LULC maps and change detection helps understand the impact of past policies and the role of several factors such as socio-economic trends and environmental changes in this region.