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STUDY OF LAND COVER/LAND USE CHANGES AND ITS RELATIONSHIP 
WITH GEOMORPHIC STRUCTURES USING MSS AND TM DATA 
H. Karszenbaum 
E. Malagnino 
CAERCEM - CONICET 
Satellite Radiometry Division 
Julian Alvares 1218 
Buenos Aires, 1414, Argentina 
ISPRS Commission VII / Working Group 9 
ABSTRACT 
Monitoring land use change is basic to almost any resource management, planning or regional policy 
programs. Remote sensing information has proven to be one of the most reliable sources of digital data for 
land change studies. IN spite of this fact, it is well known that the ability to detect temporal changes on the 
surface of the earth depends on the spatial (registration resolution), spectral (band location and width), 
radiometric (signal to noise level) and temporal (frequency of coverage) properties of the sensor system. This 
work attempts to analyzed the location, extend and rate of recent and current land use/land cover changes in 
the urban area of Buenos Aires, with special emphasis in the rural-urban fringe and the coastal areas. Several 
MSS and TM images obtained during the period 1985-1993 are utilized for this purpose. A careful analysis 
of the basic properties of the data is carried out to reduce the uncertainties in the change detection analysis. 
Different land systems are identified in each one of the images and the geomorphologic, soil, vegetation and 
urban characteristics analyzed. Comparison of the different dates is made through the application of 
enhancement techniques and multitemporal analysis. The results obtained show that the identification of the 
geomorphic structures contributes to the understanding of the changes observed. Suggestions for additional 
studies are included. 
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