Assessing Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LULCC) Between 2009 and 2019 Using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Cameron Highlands has witnessed multiple land encroachment activities as well as repeated deforestation leading to extensive land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) over the last 6 decades. This is due to the heightened increase in demand for urban growth as well as agricultural activities and tourism industries. This study aims to identify land cover classes and assess their changes in Cameron Highlands between 2009 and 2019. Geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques were used to process and analyse Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 imageries with the Object-based Image Analysis (OBIA) classification technique. The result showed that the study area experienced large changes in both agriculture and urban, as well as primary forests. LULC change for agriculture nearly tripled in 10 years from 4.93% in 2009 to 12.63% in 2019. Moreover, urban development increased from 7.48% in 2009 and 9.12% in 2019. However, the expense of this is at the cost of primary forests declining by 59.44 km² (8.87%) of total land area from 2009 until 2019. The overall accuracy of the classification achieved 94.6%. This study would be able to provide suggestions and a basis for LULCC as well as forest monitoring in other mountainous regions of the world.