Abstract
During the past century, the Little Zab River Basin (LZRB) experienced obvious Land Use and Land Cover Alterations (LULCA) due to human-induced and natural causes. LULC has a great impact on the basin’s hydrological characteristics, including evapotranspiration, surface runoff, and Land Surface Temperature. The current research investigated LULCA in the LZRB throughout two decades (from 2002 to 2023), and projected future trends for 2050. Additionally, this study used a Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) model to predict Land Surface Temperature (LST) for 2050. Highly classified maps are produced using the Maximum Likelihood Algorithms (MLA), with Kappa indices ranging from 0.90 to 0.94. The analysis of the past period showed significant LULCA across the basin. Between 2002 and 2023, the watershed experienced a considerable growth in urban areas, reaching 168.09%, while agricultural lands increased by 42.13%. Moreover, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) increased from 0.16 in 2002 to 0.24 in 2023. The LST declined by 6.67% during the same period. The projected results for 2050, derived using the CA-Markov model, with a Kappa standard index of 0.77, and a calibrated MLR model, with very good to satisfactory statistical results, revealed similar trends. The predicted LULC map showed an additional increase in agricultural lands and urban areas. Finally, the NDVI value exhibited a 37.50% rise, and the LST is projected to decline by 7.67% in 2050 compared to the 2023 value.