Land cover change (LCC) has been a subject of concern for the past few decades. Land cover change is not only affected by anthropogenic activities, but also biophysical drivers such as droughts, flooding, earthquakes, climate change and sea level rise. Traditionally, many of the changes have been recorded qualitatively through the use of comparative photographs and historical surveys and/or reports. With advancement and development of geospatial technologies, it is possible to detect land cover change and determine impacts of human activities on environment and ecosystem in islands, particularly tropical islands where water quantity and quality is essential to sustainable development and quality of life. Satellite remote sensing, spatial statistics, geographic information systems (GIS), and global positioning system (GPS) can be utilized to identify land cover information and determine land cover changes if temporal data are applied. Considering the global warming, sea level rise and human induced activities, many island nations or regions are facing serious problems with environmental sustainability, water resources and water quality. In order to mitigate the impacts of biophysical and human factors on environment, it is important to obtain land cover information, and determine land cover change, and evaluate whether human induced activities affect environment and water quality.

This project will focus on derivation of land cover information from satellite images, and determination of land cover change in Saipan, CNMI. Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) image of 1978, and Aster L1B imagery of 2009 are employed. This project mainly focuses on moderate spatial resolution data for land cover classification and land cover change detection. Higher spatial resolution data including QuickBird, GeoEye, IKONOS data, and historical aerial photos may be employed as reference data. Geospatial technologies such as GIS, spatial analysis and remote sensing are applied to complete the project. The results from the project can be applied to further address other topics such as impacts of human activities on water quality, watershed management, and island sustainable development in Saipan.