Journal of Geography and Regional Development
Year:2013 | Volume:- | Issue:19|Papers Count:16

This article studies the process of specifying the location of medical centers in two districts of Neyshabour city. Physical, economical, transport and natural criteria are addressed to locate the medical centers. The required information for the aforementioned criteria was collected through interview and observation; then, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used for attaining the best site. The accounts have been processed through the use of a couple of beneficial software, Excel and Arc GIS, observation outcomes being presented in diagrams. The final diagram which is the outcome of all criteria which are relevant to the process of specifying the location of the medical centers in the districts displays the studied districts with strong, medium and weak priority, and offers several sites for infirmary.

The dominant agricultural land uses are included of wheat farming in the Kermanshah providence in the northwest of Iran. The objective of this paper is Analyzing of topoclimatic zonning of the wheat dry farming areas based on overlying the climatic and topographic character tics.To achieve the exact date of stages of rain-fed wheat growing in different areas of the province, the degree-days temperature method was used. The next step the researchers took was the measurement of annual, autumn and spring rainfall amounts for all the stations throughout the province. Then the probabilities of suitable temperature for germination were computed; as well as, a maximum temperature of 25 to 30oC or higher was determined to be appropriate at flowering and grain-filling stages. The calculated values were converted to different zones by weighted average method (IDW) in GIS. Also using Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the province, elevation and slope classes were calculated for the whole province. Finally, by pooling and studying the data layers using “weighted classification” method, the final map of the suitable areas for the rain-fed wheat cultivation in Kermashah province was prepared. The results show that moving from east to west of the province, the terrain becomes more favorable for rain-fed wheat cultivation and the process is parallel to the distribution of annual rainfall in the province. Among the parameters studied in this research, the annual rainfall is the most important. Moreover, through the superposition of the effective layers in the process of rain-fed wheat cultivation in the environment, the potential of indentifying suitable areas for growing this precious plant were provided.

Lake Maharlu basin is located in a synclinal valley of the folded Zagros. The frame and rugged structure of the basin is made of three units of mountainous geomorphologic, smooth levels and tectonic hole and evolved during several geological periods under the effect of interactive relations of tectonic, climatology and hydro geomorphologic processes. In this study, the researchers applied historical, experimental, descriptive-analytic methods for geomorphologic investigation (especially, hydro-geomorphologic change) of the basin and the results are presented. Geomorphic units, especially, the mountainous area of the basin under study, under the influence of paleohydromorphotectonic, have created landforms and reverse ruggedness such as, cloze and cross valleys, air synclinals, canalization models and the like. On the other hand, paleohydromorphoclimatic conditions have created processes and paleokarst landforms in this area, and underground karsts by increasing insinuation and deep and underground flows, leading to surface canalization weakness of the basin. In current period, these conditions and characteristics have continued by smooth flow and creation of relatively different landforms, especially in basin levels and they have influenced the tissue of canalization model and processes and hydrogeomorphic landforms, in the form of neohydromorphotectonic processes ( the operation of active faults, analysis of salty domes with flow processes) and neohydromorphoclimatic processes (lake level fluctuations on climate change at present and seasonal and temporal flows), and they have created geomorphs such as alluvial fans and lake terrace and different desert forms in Maharlu basin. However, presently, some cases such as heavy rain showers in heights have created powerful surface flows and have had an important role in erosion, sedimentation and hydro-geomorphologic changes in the basin. The final result is that, tectonic and climatic conditions in the past and present time have created processes and various hydro-geomorphologic landforms in the basin. And these hydro-geomorphic characteristics have some potentials, hazards and environmental problems that must be paid attention to by planners and implementers of construction projects in the environment management to achieve a sustainable development.

Nowadays, participation plays an important role as an effective approach in achieving a permanent livelihood and establishing a sustainable economic  system in rural areas. In fact, the approach of participation creates an appropriate field for the continuity of rural economic systems by providing a proper background of cooperation and establishing an informational flow in different parts of production service and commerce. Rural economy is facing numerous problems including low level of production pace, severe fluctuation of production, confusion in markets, and lack of investment and severe crop diseases. Consequently, considering the participation approach in order to pass over the current unstable situation seems inevitable. The present study has attempted to investigate the people’s participation role in the dynamism of rural economy between 14 rural settlements of Eijroud Bala Rural District, in Eijroud Township, on the basis of a comprehensive approach, in a descriptive-analytical, regression framework. The data were collected in the form of a questionnaire containing 147 samples and the analysis was done by applying the SPSS software and rating the economic stability of rural areas by using TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making technique. Based on the t-student test, the extent of people’s participation and rural economic stability is meaningfully less than the expected level. The results of a multi-variable regression indicated that some indices such as the people and the government’s participation in investment in soil and water resources, offering loans for shared investment, contributing in and informing the control of agricultural products pests and the new types of high-yield crops would have the greatest influence on the stability of rural economy.

In order to achieve sustainable development, nowadays, many countries have been paying attention to bottom-up planning and planning for smallest urban unions (residential communities). This paper aims to promote sustainability level of Sarab and Sajjad residential communities and provide appropriate solutions for promoting quality of these communities. The results related to indicators of the residential communities in question (Sarab and Sajjad districts) were analyzed by using a descriptive-analytical and synthetic method of AHP and Delphi. The results show that Sajjad community, with a final sustainability weight of 0.794, compared to Sarab community, with a final weight of 0.357, enjoys more sustainable conditions, but in terms of sustainability level, considering residents’ opinions about indicators and weighting decision-making group’s opinions, Sajjad community enjoys better conditions in terms of social, economical, organizational and structural dimensions, while Sarab community is in a better condition with respect to ecological indicators.

Awareness of health and hygiene status in any society is among the most important information used in social development and planning programs to provide, maintain and improve health condition of the society, and health development is one of the important achievements of economic and social development in the two recent centuries, resulting in continuous and essential reduction in the death rate. North Khorasan Province is one of the disadvantaged and less developed regions of the country whose components of population status, especially mortality, has been taken into very little consideration. This article seeks to analyze the geographical distribution of etiology of deaths in North Khorasan province to provide authorities and decision makers with guidelines for planning in the fields of health, hygiene and safety. The research method has been retrospective descriptive and analysis of the current situation to investigate the causes of deaths in a 5-year period (1383 to 1388 A. H.) in all deaths recorded in the Province. Categorization of the causes of deaths has been carried out on the basis of the International Classification Deaths (ICD) of the World Health Organization into 17 groups. To study the issue, the authors have benefited from some data, tables, charts and maps along with GIS techniques. The findings show that mortality due to circulatory system diseases, injuries and accidents, cancer and tumors in the province in all the years studied rank first to third, respectively. The town of Farooj is an exception. In this town, respiratory system diseases are the most common causes of deaths. Research results indicate significant difference ‫in causes of deaths according to sex in the Province‫. In other words, the causes of deaths between men and women follow a specific pattern‫. The greatest differences in the patterns of death causes between men and women relates to deaths caused by accidents and the mortality rate 54/4 due to the above-mentioned factors among men is more than those of women.

Information and Communication Technologies are a set of tools, machines, technical knowledge, methods and skills to be used for production, trade, processing, storage, recycling, transferring, and transport of “information”. In the globalization process, information has created the possibility for formation of various formal and informal networks by individuals, groups, and even other networks, and by contraction of time and space, information has mobilized these groups for the formation of movements and causes. Middle East and North Africa Region enjoys a specific geographical status due to having three important straits (Hormoz, Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal), great energy reserves, and energy corridors. These factors make it a geopolitically, geoeconomically, and geostrategically significant region. Beside natural conditions, factors such as common religion, language and race, and post-colonialist backgrounds increase speed of diffusion of events all over this large area. In recent years, especially in 2011, Information and Communication Technologies have played an important role in expansion of uprising in the region. Egypt is a country with unique characteristics, which has traditionally led intellectual developments in the Arab region and Muslim world. It seems that the course of the recent political events in Egypt will have a prominent role in identifying future geopolitical developments in the region. Using a descriptive-analytic method, the current article investigates how political developments in North Africa and the Middle East, especially in Egypt, have been influenced by Information and Communication Technologies, namely by “social networks”. Results of this research show that these technologies have been strongly instrumental not only for the generation of the mentioned developments, but also for the rapid expansion of social unrest in the Arab Middle East and North Africa; they have been used for increasing people’s awareness, changing the type of requests and methods of expressing them, intensification and organization of protests, and attraction of the exponents inland and abroad by managing the transmission of news.

The volume and surface area of the coast is a function of basin water levels. Recognizing the factors of coastal geomorphologic changes could have a pivotal role in planning and managing the coast. Effective factors in the formation and evolution of geomorphologic factors such as geological, tectonic, paleoclimatic, paleoclimatic and sea level changes have been considered in this study and the main purpose has been the study and classification of coastal geomorphology and the forces of change in water level fluctuations of the Caspian coast from Anzali to Astara. In this study, the classification method has been Shepard Studies and the research was based on satellite images, GIS and field surveys, using all the features of the coast: hydrodynamic characteristics (waves, ocean currents, and water level fluctuations), geological features, climate, land use, and vegetation. The extent and rate of geomorphologic changes were identified and classified. The zoning map on the basis of satellite images and Shepard studies were divided and category indicators like delta, sand dunes, and wetlands were identified.

The Sangbast-Shandiz fault zone, with a length of about 57 km, a width of moderately 2 km, and a NW-SE direction, is located about 15 km in the west of Mashhad city. That is one of the major faults in the Binalud Mountains. Geomorphic evidences illustrate that the Sangbast-Shandiz fault zone has dextral strike- slip offsets with thrust activity. In this article, we investigated geomorphic features of faulting, by using remote sensing analysis of satellite images, digital elevation maps, and field work studies. These geomorphic attributes consist of a topographical distortion along the fault line on the surface and offsets or cutting in liner features as drainage systems like stream channels and liner eroding crests. In the results, we found out that increasing of fault slip quantity, increased elongation, widened the fault segments, and so joined pre-existing faults and segments and decreased fault steps. In addition, the southeast mid of Sangbast-Shandiz fault zone is releasing energy and seems to be in a growing state while the northwest mid is in a compressing stress state.

In the late decades of the 20th century, urban planners, due to the environmental worries arising from modernist urbanism looked for paradigms of new sustainable development regarding ideal city forms, since urban sprawl and horizontal expanse of cities lead to different socio–economic and structural disorders; therefore, during the recent decades, planners who are unanimously heading for sustainable development, have been taking different city forms into consideration, one of which being city compact form or compact city which results in a balanced social atmosphere and decreases energy consumption. This study, aiming at comparing the existing city textures and identifying the structural characteristics of each (especially the middle texture ) in the city of Bojnord, and based on a descriptive method and using the SWOT technique, shows that Bojnord city, under the influence of various economic, social and historical factors, has consequently enjoyed three textures : ancient, middle and external, each of which providing some certain facilities and limitations to achieve the goal of a sustainable city. results, within framework smart cities theory, shows that the inner texture of Bojnord, compared with the problematic ancient texture and the informal settlements in the external texture has a higher potentiality for combining mix-land uses and compressing the city. It should be noted that proper planning can be a good point to move toward sustainable city development.

Pistachio is one of the most important export items in Iran, comprising more than 23% of Iran non-oil exports. Yazd is considered as the second biggest province of Iran from the viewpoint of pistachio production, standing after Kerman Province. Since frostbite phenomenon, especially, strong spring frostbite, has incurred many damages into pistachio gardens of this area, it is necessary to study frostbite in this province; since being aware of the phenomenon and its occurrence time can help the farmers in preventing and reducing damages caused by frostbite. The objective of this project is to study and analyze strong spring frostbite in pistachio gardens and zone it in Yazd province. For this purpose, we used the daily statistics of the minimum temperature in 16 meteorological stations of the province and its neighborhood during a common 18-year statistical period (1993-2010). In order to zone spring frostbite intensity of pistachio, we counted the number of days having frostbite in each station with three weak (1 to -1oC), mediate (-1.1 to -3oC) and strong (-3oC and less) thresholds and after studying the relation between the number of frostbite days and altitude, we plotted the frostbite area maps in Arc GIS medium. In addition, we extracted temperature drop times with 1, 0 and -1oC thresholds as the effective temperatures on pistachio in florescence stage and plotted its zoning maps. The results of this research show that pistachio gardens of all stations under investigation except Tabas station including Yazd and Bafgh stations experience weak frostbite, while the remaining stations experience weak, mediate and strong frostbite in spring season. Therefore, south and southwestern stations (Dehshir, Marvast, Ashkezar, Ardakan and Bahadran) are considered as a dangerous region for agriculture especially pistachio gardens in terms of occurrence of different frostbite intensities. Temperature drop time in 1, 0 and -1oC reveals that 1oC temperature drop ends from 23 to 28 March and 00C temperature drop ends since 22 to 27 March and -1oC temperature drop ends since 21 to 28 March in Yazd province.

The upper level pressure patterns control the climate of the surface. The identification of these patterns in the regional scale is useful for the study of the surface climate elements and their forecasting. In order to understand the pressure centers controlling the climate of Iran during the cold period of the year, the daily 500 hPa. geopotential height of the grid points of 2.5 degrees distance within the windows of 10 to 70 North and 10 to 80 E. were obtained from the NCEP data center for the 1948-2010 period. The action centers or the controlling points of the climate of Iran were determined using the PCA. Each action centre controlled the climate of Iran through a specific pressure pattern. The results showed that about eight controlling points affect the climate of Iran during the cold period of the year. The northern Siberia is the most important center in controlling the climate of Iran. Most of the controlling centers are located north of Iran. Only the Monsoon of Pakistan is located to the south of Iran. Most of the pressure patterns indicated a meridional orientation with low index cycle accompanied with cut-offs and blocking patterns. Deep troughs and strong ridges are the frequent phenomena of the westerly winds over Iran.

In the present study storms of the economic, political, and human dimensions of space (with the help of satellite imagery (MODIS, after a time, and the destructive power of hurricanes, including discussions of the factors influencing the formation dynamics, thermodynamics and environmental issues, snow storm 2005 investigated. For a more detailed analysis of synoptic snow storm of Guilan, Rasht was set for the snow surface pressure patterns. To identify patterns of snowfall city of Rasht, Rasht station daily precipitation statistics for the period (2005-1995) of the weather and snowy days Rasht were prepared. Wards cluster analysis using three models for snow days, snow was Rasht. The first pattern of high pressure Balkan languages (bilingual high pressure north-west of the Caspian Sea basin, the Balkans region is affected).is). 500 hPa level winds over the region's traffic. Precipitation, snow water equivalent height mm 73 is the same as the threshold was heavy snow in Rasht. Gillan heavy snowfall in February 2005 (Feb 1383) settlement pattern in the third. Of the synoptic maps from the two tabs on February 3 and February 5 hyperbaric merged Caspian Sea are affected. 21 hours of Greenwich heavy snowfall begins February 7. The hpa 500, traffic axis lying north-east - south-west, west winds prevail. Snow covered area derived from MODIS satellite data analysis shows that over 275/2420 Kylvmrb of the province is covered by snow. Destruction of over fifty thousand units of residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, educational and hundreds of kilometers of electrical networks, a clear testament to the City is a huge snow storm, record snow in Rasht, but there is never such damages.