REMOTE SENSING ANALYSIS OF THE CHANGES IN VEGETATED COASTLAND: THE CASE OF SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

Abstract. The coastlands are changing in the Southeastern European countries. Yet, temporal and spatial changes in natural-vegetated land, urban-vegetated land and agriculture-vegetated land use on coastal surfaces, respectively, are missing. The aim is to understand the changes in vegetated land on the coastal surface by retrieving spatial data from remote sensing using a new approach by reducing errors in data processed and by collecting data using surveys to understand the driving (abiotic and biotic) factors of vegetated land changes and land dynamics at regional level. These spatial and survey data are then to be employed at spatially explicit analysis to define driving factors, plausibly explaining spatial and temporal changes of vegetated land on coastal surfaces in the Southeastern European study region including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro and Slovenia for the last fifty years. The expected main result is a new methodological approach of remote sensing spatial data analysis by reducing data errors and by identifying driving factors of the changes in vegetated land. The findings may serve to understand the effects of land management and land use on the changes in vegetated land-use on coastal surfaces, and to potentially uncover the least disturbed vegetated land areas by human intervention for vegetation conservation.