Fateme Hadian; reza jafari; hosein bashari
Volume 22, Issue 4 , March 2015, , Pages 730-744
Abstract
Urbanization has been a major factor of natural resource degradation in the Semirom region of Isfahan province. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of urban development through land cover/ land use changes over a 37-year period using Landsat 1976 MSS and 2013 TM images and population data. First, ...
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Urbanization has been a major factor of natural resource degradation in the Semirom region of Isfahan province. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of urban development through land cover/ land use changes over a 37-year period using Landsat 1976 MSS and 2013 TM images and population data. First, necessary processing (geometric, radiometric, and topographic) was applied on images. Then, by using field assessment and GoogleEarth software, sample points were selected. The land use/ cover maps of the region and their changes were extracted by maximum likelihood classifier and post classification methods and their accuracy were assessed through overall accuracy and Kappa statistics. The accuracy assessment showed that the accuracy of maps in 1976 and 2013 was about (overall accuracy) 80% and 92%, respectively. The population was increased during three decades from 41973 to 65047 persons, which has led to an increase of 0.90 and 0.26 in the urban, and agriculture area and a 3 percent decrease of rangeland area. The 2.5 fold increase in bare land area in 2013 in comparison with 1976 indicated the severity of land degradation in the study area. Overall, drought and urban area attractions have facilitated the migration of people from villages to the city and had considerable negative effects in natural resources. Therefore, the region requires a holistic approach in all economic, social, and environmental developments.
Hosein arzani; Mahdi Adnani; Hosein Bashari; Mojgan azimi; Hosein Bagheri; Morteza Akbar zadeh; Hasan Kaboli
Volume 13, Issue 4 , February 2007, , Pages 296-313
Abstract
Rangelands have important role in economy of country because of providing forage for animals, soil and water conservation and other services giving to society. Therefore their careful management is necessary. To do this, main vegetative stepic regions of Qum province were ...
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Rangelands have important role in economy of country because of providing forage for animals, soil and water conservation and other services giving to society. Therefore their careful management is necessary. To do this, main vegetative stepic regions of Qum province were selected. In each community a key area was determined to establish a permanent site, so eight key areas were selected in the whole province. In each site four parallel, 400 meter transects were established. Canopy cover and yield within 60 quadrates in two square meter areas, along each transect were measured each year. According to the results, Qum's rangelands contain poor vegetation composition with low cover percentage and yield. Desirable species were absent in vegetation composition and moderate and non-desirable species made major part of vegetation cover and yield. Most Qum's rangelands suffer from over grazing and should be recovered by a suitable management program. Results showed significant relationships (P<0.05) between canopy cover and forage yield of studied species during 6 years (1999-2004). However regression models calculated based on correlation between cover and yield varied due to seasonal condition in each year.