Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• morteza Khodagholi ¹
• Razieh Saboohi ²
• Alireza Eftekhari ³
• Mina Bayat ⁴

¹ Professor, Rangeland Research Division, Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, AREEO, Tehran, I.R.Iran,

² Expert researcher, Soil conservation and Watershed Management Research Department, Isfahan Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Isfahan, I.R.Iran

³ Assistant Professor., Rangeland Research Division, Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, AREEO, Tehran, I.R.Iran,

⁴ Expert researcher, Rangeland Research Division, Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, AREEO, Tehran, I.R.Iran

Abstract

Background and purpose:
Increasing awareness of the environment and efforts for sustainable management of natural resources require study and monitoring in different time scales and places. Continuous changes should be considered as an inseparable part of any ecosystem. As natural ecosystems, rangelands are not exempt from this issue. So that rangeland monitoring is necessary in the sense of continuous investigation of these lands with regard to the ecological importance, economic functions and constant changes of these resources. Access to such data is extremely important both for national planning and for the use of rangelands, and it provides the basis for the use of advanced facilities such as remote sensing. Based on this, in order to monitor the trend and intensity of changes in vegetation cover and soil indicators of rangelands for 4 years at the Goorab site located in Isfahan province, it was evaluated and monitored.
Materials and methods:
The site of Goorab Fereydoonshahr Isfahan is located 230 kilometers west of Isfahan city and 35 kilometers west of Fereydoonshahr city. Plant factors including canopy cover of plant species and production rate of plant species and percentage of dead leaves were evaluated. Evaluation was done in the first year by random-systematic method and in the following years systematically with sufficient number of samples and appropriate distribution of samples in the plant type determined at the time of rangeland preparation. Soil sampling was done in the
Results:
The results showed that the 4-year average vegetation canopy cover percentage of Goorab site is about 42.2%, and the highest and lowest coverage is 59.4% in 1398 and 31.6% in 1400, respectively. The production rate is 1374.2 kg of dry matter per hectare. The production, like the canopy cover percentage, shows a lot of changes during the 4-year evaluation at the Goorab site, so that in 2019, the production reached 1957 kg per hectare, and in 2021, it decreased by 50% compared to 2019 to 955.7 kg per hectare. The results of the correlation and regression test also showed that the amount of precipitation in the growing season had the highest correlation with the amount of crown cover and production of plants in the region.
Conclusion:
Considering the importance of rangelands, both in terms of production and in terms of environmental values and services they provide to the society, studying the changes of rangelands in terms of the aforementioned factors and knowing the factors of those changes will be an effective help in developing a basic management plan and sustainable use of rangelands.

Keywords

• Rangeland monitoring
• rangeland management
• production
• canopy cover
• Goorab site and grassland