Nexus of Land for Food and Urbanisation: Application of <scp>DPSIR</scp> Model and Remote Sensing Data in a Developing Economy

ABSTRACT Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) are regarded as serious environmental problems globally. LULC assessment is a process that leads to a beneficial understanding of how people and the environment interact. The objective of the current study was to quantify LULC change and to determine its primary causes in the metropolis of Tehran in Iran over a 30‐year period (1990–2020) using the DPSIR framework, which includes drivers, pressures, state, impact, and responses. In this study, Landsat 5, Landsat 7, and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS satellite images were employed for LULC change detection analysis in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. The DPSIR framework was used to identify the main reasons for the LULC changes. The LULC maps were created based on focus group discussions (FGDs) and a survey of farmers for the three dates. The findings indicated that this study region has experienced considerable changes in LULC over the last four decades, largely due to a transition from agricultural and forest land into built‐up residential areas. The urban and built‐up area expanded by 384.94 km 2 (47.15% of study area), forest land was depleted by 43.06 km 2 (5.9% of study area), and farmland declined by 61.05 km 2 (8.02%) during the study period (1990–2020). Surveys from participants and FGDs recognized population growth, urbanization, degraded lands, urban and rural land tenure systems, and climate change as main driver factors for LULC changes. In addition, the significant increase in migration from the rural to the urban areas caused an increase in population and land scarcity and a decline in land productivity. These findings could be practical for policymakers and decision makers to improve resource sustainability, effective land use planning, and appropriate decision‐making.