Ecological Capability Investigation for Agricultural and Rangeland Management Using AHP and GIS (Case Study: Gheymaskhan, East Azerbaijan Province)

Qeymas Khan Catchment is one of the most important catchments in East Azarbaijan province is agricultural and rangeland management which has long been used for subsistence residents of this area. The aim of this study is to evaluate ecological potential of Qeymas Khan Catchment for agricultural and rangeland management users and comparing it with the current land users to achieve sustainable development. For this purpose, the parameters used such as slope, elevation, land user, bedrock, soil texture, soil erosion, soil hydrological groups, soil depth, drainage, salinity, fertility, rainfall, temperature, vegetation density and vegetation type. Finally, it was studied to evaluate potential of area for agricultural and rangeland management users by using of AHP model (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and Expert Choice and ArcGIS softwares. Results of this research showed that the area of poor rangelands is 611 ha (14.5%), moderate rangelands 530 ha (12.5%), good rangelands 399 ha (9.5%), poor agricultural land 908.5 ha (21.5%), moderate agricultural land 569.6 (13.5%), good agricultural land 826.8 ha (19.6%) and very good agricultural land 369 ha (8.7%). Therefore this area has good potential for agricultural and rangeland management. The compare of ecological potential map and current land user showed that current land use of this studied area matches with the ecological potential of studied area

Evaluation of Land Cover Changes Ysing Remote Sensing Technique (Case study: Hableh Rood Subwatershed of Shahrabad Basin)

The growing population and increasing socio-economic necessities creates a pressure on land use/land cover. Nowadays, land use change detection using remote sensing data provides quantitative and timely information for management and evaluation of natural resources. This study investigates the land use changes in part of Hableh Rood Watershed of Iran using Landsat 7 and 8 (Sensor ETM+ and OLI) images between 2001 and 2013. Supervised classification was used for classification of Landsat images. Four land use classes were delineated including rangeland, irrigated farming and plantations land, and dry farming lands,urban. Visual interpretation, expert knowledge of the study area and ground truth information accumulated with field works to assess the accuracy of the classification results. Overall accuracy of 2001 and 2013 image classification was 81.48 (Kappa coefficient: 0.7340) and 87.04 (Kappa coefficient: 0.7841), respectively. The results showed considerable land cover changes for the given study area. Land cover change detection showed that in a period of 12 years, 277.57 hectares of dry farming lands and 340 hectares of dense range have been lost. But, 341 hectares for low dense range, 280 hectares for semi dense range and 1.4 hectares for urban areas, have been added in area

EvaluationofLandCoverChangesRemoteSensingTechnique (Case Study: Hableh Rood Subwatershed of ShahrabadBasin)

The growing population and increasing socio-economic necessities creates a pressure on land use/land cover. Nowadays, land use change detection using remote sensing data provides quantitative and timely information for management and evaluation of natural resources. This study investigates the land use changes in part of Hableh Rood Watershed of Iran using Landsat 7 and 8 (Sensor ETM+ and OLI) images between 2001 and 2013. Supervised classification was used for classification of Landsat images. Four land use classes were delineated including rangeland, irrigated farming and plantations land, and dry farming lands,urban. Visual interpretation, expert knowledge of the study area and ground truth information accumulated with field works to assess the accuracy of the classification results. Overall accuracy of 2001 and 2013 image classification was 81.48 (Kappa coefficient: 0.7340) and 87.04 (Kappa coefficient: 0.7841), respectively. The results showed considerable land cover changes for the given study area. Land cover change detection showed that in a period of 12 years, 277.57 hectares of dry farming lands and 340 hectares of dense range have been lost. But, 341 hectares for low dense range, 280 hectares for semi dense range and 1.4 hectares for urban areas, have been added in area