Geography and Environmental Planning
Year:2017 | Volume:28 | Issue:3 (67) |Papers Count:13

Today, urbanization and environmental impacts have been revealed to everyone. Among the harmful effects of urbanization, thermal islands have been considered by politicians and researchers in the field of environmental science more than any other factor. The aim of this research is to identify the critical environmental zones of Isfahan urban thermal islands. In order to achieve this goal, the first 9 images were downloaded from Landsat 8 satellite for the warm period of the year 2013 through 2015. Then, the required pre-processing schemes, land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were calculated. Then, the Environmental Criticality Index (ECI) was used to identify sensitive areas. The results showed that there is a sharp thermal slope between the city center and the suburbs due to the existence of a cool thermal island in the city center. The largest urban thermal islands were identified in the 6th district. Focal thermal islands and urban thermal islands strip are two types of thermal islands after the peripheries accounted for most regions in this study. The highest environmental sensitivity was in the southern part of the city (6th district of the city) and the lowest environmental sensitivity was in the center of the city (urban areas 1 to 3) were identified. In order to solve this crisis, the upcoming proposal to develop green roof vegetation organized and tailored to the indigenous climate can be considered as the best practice for thermal island mitigation.

In this study, in order to know the trend of frost phenomenon in Kashan station in the next years, the ice days of this station were modeled. To this end, the comparison and selection of the best fitted model has been investigated by atmospheric circulation models. After collecting daily data of Kashan synoptic station in the period of 1973-2000, according to the data of the general circulation model in the period of 2011-2030 and the selection of the A1 emission scenario, among the general atmospheric circulation models, five applicable models including BCM2, HADCM3, IPCM4, GIAOM, and HADGEM were selected and the climatic data of the station were redistributed using LARS-WG software. In order to create daily data by 2030, the mean and standard deviation of each model were compared with the calculation of bias and absolute error. Considering the lowest absolute error among models, the GIAOM model was selected to predict the minimum and maximum temperature and artificial ice data, as well as to investigate Kashan frost for future climatic intervals. The results of the GIAOM model showed that the highest increase in the minimum and maximum mean temperatures in the future will occur in the summer and autumn seasons and the lowest temperature increase will be in the winter and spring seasons, which indicates that we should be waiting for warmer summers and autumns. The results of frost trends show that the number of days with weak, moderate, and severe frost in the future will be reduced. Meanwhile, the maximum reduction in the number of freezing days will be due to weak freezing. The decrease in the number of freezing days in Kashan station indicates the climatic susceptibility of this region to the global warming consequences and, in fact, shows the sensitivity of the number of freezing days in this region to this phenomenon.

All evidence about Iran's villages and local communities, suggests a gradual disintegration of their capabilities which has led to more immigration than residents of these areas to the cities. Geotourism, which emphasizes the maintenance and protection of the five key dimensions of the geographic features of a region - the environment, culture, beauty, science, education, and the well-being of local people, can play a special role in preserving the capacities of local communities. This study aimed to introduce some geosites and geomorphosites of northwest of Iran and to explain the role of development or vanishing of Geotouristic areas on the protection and organization of ability of local communities. Research methodology is based on literature review, taking advantage of the valuable experiences of other countries and researchers in the field of tourism, identifying and analyzing geotouristic issues of some geotouristic areas of northwestern Iran using landscape analytical techniques, and ultimately establishing the position of geotourism in the protection and organization of geotourisic areas. The study of the dependence of local communities in the studied areas to the environmental changes and the impact of these changes on stability or disintegration of geotouristic areas showed that geotourism intrinsic properties such as environmentalism, productivity, resource conservation, respect local traditions and culture, qualitative review, synergy, collaboration, awareness, economic benefit, integrity, and ultimately satisfaction, all emphasized the conservation and sustainable exploitation coupled with development.

Thermal waves are one of the consequences of increasing the temperature in the climatic system. The west and southwest of Iran are among the areas that have been exposed to thermal waves in the summer in recent years. Thermal waves of the area were identified using Baldi Index of daily maximum temperature data from 36 meteorological stations. Also, the coherent conditions of thermal waves were analyzed using geo-potential height, sea level pressure, vertical vortices, U wind and V wind at 1000 to 250 hp in a 6-hour interval from the NCEP / NCAR data series. According to Baldi index, the long-term thermal wave covers the western stations of the country from 2/07/2010 to 13/07/2010. The analysis of synoptic maps showed that thermal waves were formed with the establishment of Persian Gulf and Gang low pressure thermal systems with humidity, the establishment of blocking systems at 500HPS level by expanding the Azor dynamic high pressure, negative deflections, and STHP up to the Caspian Sea shores. Increasing evapotranspiration, water need, electricity consumption and the power transfer network deterioration, and reducing climatic welfare are the consequences of the establishment of synoptic conditions. Also, the integration of lowpressure Persian Gulf waves with Monsoon waves of the subcontinent, the establishment of the Azor dynamic high-pressure, and the creation of a blocking system on the area are the consequences of existing thermal waves over the region.

Tourism industry has become one of the world’s most benefiting industries. It has had a 439-million dollar role in the economy in 1998. It is predicted that in 2020 there will be 1.6 billion international tourists which will cause a 2 trillion dollar turnover worldwide (WTO). Climate and tourism affect each other in different ways as the leading parts of a system and in interaction bring up a new discussion called “Tourism Climatology” (Shackleford & Olsson, 1995). Having desirable climate conditions is among the advantages and potentials for tourism, many tourists pay close attention to the climate in choosing a destination (DeFreitas, 2001, 8). The tourism industry is in serious need of tourism climate evaluation as one of the main economical sources of the country, so it is vital to evaluate the country’s tourism climate using scientific and quantitative methods acceptable all over the world. Usually climate elements in tourism are introduced by a set of indexes. The new index which has been used recently and doesn' t have the previous indexes’ deficiencies is programmed and evaluated as CTIS. It combines the thermal components, such as PET, aesthetic components, like cloudiness and mist, and physical components, such as the wind speed, rainfall and the vapor pressure. In this research statistics and the weather information of 5 stations (Isfahan, Kaboutar-abad, Daran, Fereydoun-Shahr, Varzaneh) alongside Zayandeh-Rood River have been used to make the comfort climate calendar of a 31-year period for Isfahan, from 1983 to 2013.

Nowadays, the issue of urban accident is considered as a social problem in the world that has many human and financial costs for any society every year. In the current situation, our country experiences the highest rate of deaths from traffic accidents in the world. Unfortunately, in the field of urban car accidents in Iran, enough studies haven’t been done yet. In this regard, this study tries to plan a strategy within the city in order to reduce accidents and improve sidewalks. This research has a descriptive-analytical methodology and is considered as an applied–developmental research. To analyze the data, the software SPSS, Excel and Expert Choice have been used. Part of required data based on 1391-1393 statistics provided by the city's traffic center. The SWOT model has been used to adopt the necessary strategies to reduce accidents. Using the AHP and SWOT techniques, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Marvdasht urban road network were obtained.The results indicate that among the defense, revise or adapt, contingency and competitive / aggressive strategies, defense or adapt strategies were used in order to improve the road network. These solutions are to meet required parking lots, to remove different bumpers for reducing high speed and inputs in some streets and improve the traffic knowledge of citizens.

The purpose of this study is investigating the influence of tectonic activity and the potential of seismic creation of faults on alluvial fans in different structural zones in Kermanshah as well as zoning fault risk on alluvial fans using spatial analysis of Barbarian. First, by using geomorphic indicators (VF, B, SMF, FCI), the tectonic activity was investigated in the region. Then, the potential of seismic creation of faults was calculated in the surface and adjacent of alluvial fans by means of Zare, Ashjaee, Meloyle and Smith. Finally, using spatial analysis Barbarian, fault risk on alluvial fans and variety of human uses on their surface was checked and the rate of uses density in the fault area was calculated.Findings of the research indicated that the influence of tectonics activity (fault) on the zone of broken Zagros is more than the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone and in the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone is more than folded Zagros. Also the results of investigating the potential seismic of faults indicated that most of the faults have a high seismic potential. The results of fault risk zonation on alluvial fans indicated that 0.54 of residential areas, 0.52 of agricultural land, 0.59 of springs and 0.46 of communication lines located on the studied alluvial fans (West Country) are located in 1000 meters of fault (areas with high risk).

The irregular takings of subterranean waters reduce water levels and change their quality. One of the effective parameters in determining the amount of groundwater change is the amount of electrical conductivity of water, so that with uncontrolled removal and reduction of groundwater level, the salinity of water increases, which entails irreparable damage to the animal ecosystem and plant life. In this research, we tried to study the amount of groundwater salinity of Namdan plain by determining the spatial analysis of its relationship with the deep and semi-deep wells in the plain. Therefore, the data of 32 observational wells in the plain area using an interpolation method in the GIS environment in order to determine the salinity of groundwater in 5 categories of very high, high, moderate, low and very low in the ten-year statistical period (2001-2010) were used. Then, by combining the information layers for all statistical years, the final decision regarding the determination of the salinity of groundwater was made. Finally, the relationship between the very high and high salinity zones with deep and semi-deep wells was investigated and it was found that among 1311 deep wells in the plain, 433 wells (33.02%) are in very high and high range, while for semi-deep wells it is 66/12%. In this way, it can be concluded that the position of deep wells and their unnecessary harvesting have a huge impact on the salinity of groundwater in the plain.

The aim of this research is to investigate temporal-spatial variations in the frequency distribution of daily precipitation in Iran. For this purpose, data from daily precipitation were interpolated using 1427 synchronization, climatic and rain-gauging stations in Iran through Kriging method for the time interval of 1961/03/21–2004/03/19 and were divided into two periods. Programming in MATLAB software environment with normal family distribution functions (standard normal and log-normal) and gamma (two-parameter and exponential) on a single 7187 pixells were fitted separately in each period to determine the fittest frequency distribution. The results show that, with 95% confidence level, gamma and exponential distributions were statistically able to obtain the conditions required for test.Extensive spatial and temporal changes in precipitation distribution are not confirmed as one of the components of climate change tracking. Calculating the fittest distribution parameters using linear momentum, this parameter indicates the slight changes in spatial distribution pattern; for example, the standard deviation parameter shows that in 63% of the country's area, including central and south of Iran and the confidence in rainfall in the second period has decreased compared to the first one. This increase in uncertainty is a hazard to the vulnerability of sensitive and fragile ecosystems in these areas.