Detection of mangrove vegetation area changes at Govater Creek in Sistan & Baluchestan province

Govater Creek is one of the creeks in GovaterBayat the end of east southern of Sistan and BaluchestanProvince. Mangrove’s communities in this bay only consist of grey mangrove (Avicennia marina). In order to study the changes of mangrove vegetation area and density in Govater Creek from 1957 to 2006 (for 49 years) aerial photos with scales of 1:55000 and 1:20000 in 1957 and 1966, Corona satellite image in 1965, Landsat satellite image TM/ETM related to 1998 and 2001, IRS satellite image in 2006 and QuickBird satellite image in 2006 were used. Results showed that the changes rate of mangrove’s forest for this period has not been uniform but changes have been positive and area was changed from 101.19 to 149.18 ha. This change has average growing rate of 0.98 ha per year. The most of changes is related to years between 1966 until 1998. Generally we can conclude that before 1966, decreases have been in both density class (i.e. dense and sparse) and from 1966 to 1998, increases is observed specially in low density class and then until 2006 trend of changes has been slow and negative.