Unmanaged land use change is one of the major challenges of natural resources in the 21st century. The arid and semi-arid watersheds in Iran are faced with this problem, as well. This work analyzes the size and intensity of land use changes and the stationary at three levels of time, category and transition intensity in the Kardeh dam watershed, northeastern Iran. With the field investigations and the existing land use maps, the study area was classified into the five categories, including rangeland, irrigated farming and orchards, rainfed farming, bareland and residential . The intensity analysis was done based on a mathematical method that compared the observed intervals. A cross-tabulation matrix was created for each time interval (1987-1998, 1998-2008, 2008-2016) and the intensity of changes was examined at the three levels of time interval, category intensity, and transition intensity. The largest amount of land use change is occurred in the first time period (1987-1998), however, the intensity of the changes in the last time period (2008-2016) includes the highest amount. Intense and unprincipled changes of rangelands to irrigated and rainfed farming has led to an increased intensity of bareland changes. The results illustrate that the most changes and fluctuations are among the rangeland, irrigated and rainfed farming categories without a regular pattern. Rangeland is the only dormant category for both gains and losses, in spite of being involved in most of the changes

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