Journal of Geography and Environmental Studies
Year:2010 | Volume:1 | Issue:4|Papers Count:12

Sociologists believe that leisure is an entirely new phenomenon of urban and industrial societies which cannot be compared with past centuries’ unemployment. Meanwhile, the world's population is aging now, and our country following the world's population has progressed towards aging during the last two decades. The Elderly, at this stage of their life are freer and enjoy more leisure. This study aimed at identifying whether there exists any difference between leisure requirements and the choice of proper place for spending free time among the elderly in the 2nd and 5th districts of Isfahan province. These regions were selected because of having a different structure in terms of social and cultural status. In this research, descriptive-analytic methods were used and the intended population consisted of the elderly people selected from districts 2nd and 5th in Isfahan. The sample size was obtained through Cochrane method and based on 2006 Population and Housing census, and the differentiation of new urban districts (14 districts) was updated by the governor of Isfahan Planning Department. To assess the presence or absence of difference in interest and leisure requirements of the elderly in the two districts and the priority of selecting places for spending free time and comparing it in the two districts, the Mc-Whitney correlation test was used. In fact, this test is used for comparing the average of two or more societies. The obtained results indicated that, there is a significant difference among the requirements and subjective choice of the free time of the elderly in the two districts as well as willingness to use specific places. Thus, offering a uniform suggestion for all urban areas regarding the provision of the citizens with free time facilities is a fruitless measure both concerning the provision of specific programs and the establishment and construction of new places or even kinds of places.

Imbalanced and intensive centralization is one of the features of the third world countries and is due to the polar growth policy consequences. Urban population (city size) has been widely distributed over various regions with different sizes and patterns. These entirely different patterns mainly show regions in which growth of cities occurs with unequal policies and without any specific plan. During this process, the largest cities have the fastest growth rate and this fact has led to the emergence of demographic, economic, social and political dominance of one or more cities over other cities within the urban system of a region or a country. The imbalance of rural and urban centers in socio-economic grounds has resulted in the disorder of local regularity of settlements on the one hand and the uncontrolled, rapid growth of the first class cities on the other. One sample of this kind of disorder is the imbalanced structure of Yazd province. Polarization of population in Yazd region as well as centralization of economic activities and social services have resulted in illogical hierarchy of the rate and size of the settlements. This article makes use of scalogram model and library data collection together with the statistical analysis of data to deal with the issue at hand. Efforts have been made to propose strategies for removing the imbalance in Yazd area. The results indicate inequality and imbalance of space development in the province in a way that from the total ten cities under study in Yazd, Taft and Meybod are considered as developed, but the city of Ardakan, Mehriz, Tabas and Saduq have moderate development, and the city of Bafq, Khatam and Abarkouh are considered as under developed and generally far from the city’s center of development. The findings of this research imply other significant issues to be discussed in the body of the article.

In order to investigate the statistical analysis of agricultural frost phenomena in Najafabad, the minimum temperature data from 1/1/1961 up to 31/12/2004 equal to 16071 days were extracted from Najafabad climatology station. Then these data were reanalyzed and the Christian calendar was converted to solar calendar. The number of frost days were calculated in each year and then arranged by a 365 * 93 matrix. Later, based on this matrix, the number of frost days was calculated, and after becoming confident of the independence of data and its normal distribution, using linear regression and, Beta test and Mann-Kendall trend analysis, no significant trend was observed in the number of annual frost days. The investigations showed that although the frost days have not decreased, the occurrence of severe frosts has started to decrease. On the other hand, the increase in frequency of zero temperature had been reported. The length of frost period in Najafabad is about four months which lasts from mid November to Mid March. The frost in Najafabad does not begin sooner than the end of March and does not last more than the end of September. The studies showed that there has not been significant trend in the length of frost period based on zero thresholds.

Freezing is one of the weather phenomena which has a variety of effects on daily and developmental activities. In this research, the changes occurred in the freezing period in the synoptic station of Rasht during the last fifty years (1960-2009) have been studied. The daily statistics along with the date of occurrence were obtained by the Excel software. Data analysis was done by statistical methods. The obtained results indicate that the annual absolute minimum temperature (AMT) data shows greater fluctuations compared to other temperature variables. The analysis of Rasht AMT data based on statistical distribution seems to be regressed appropriately with Gamble statistical distribution. In addition, the beginning of fall freezing and the end of spring freezing follow the normal statistical distribution function. The obtained results show that the freezing period in the station under study has had a decreasing trend and has decreased from 100 days to less than 80 days. The annual absolute minimum temperature increased from -7 to -40oc and the freezing days fluctuated from 40 to less than 20 days. In conclusion, the decrease in the freezing period along with the rise in minimum temperature and decrease of the number of freezing days represent the change in the minimum temperature of Rasht in the past fifty years.

Great numbers of factors would influence the progress and efficiency of tourism industry in an area. However, some of these factors are more effective than others. The aim of this research is to design a pattern for evaluating the degree of influential factors’ success, so that in this way we can estimate the degree of success of tourism industry in an area. The purpose of using such a method is to create effective factors in this industry and to make the existing complex relations in tourism more comprehensible. Therefore, utilizing such elements, a specific tourism map has been prepared and different areas regarding their tourism industry have been compared. Using such a method helps planners to recognize the weak points and to strengthen the strong points of tourism in an area. In this research, tourists arrived in Boushehr from surrounding and remote areas have been considered as the participants of the study so that in this way we can not only categorize the influential factors for attracting tourists and put them in an equation, but also obtain a pattern compatible with other urban or rural areas and generally with other regions. To collect data, a questionnaire prepared by the researcher was distributed among the tourists. Based on Chronbach, the reliability of questionnaire was calculated as 93% that shows an acceptable reliability for the measurement instruments. Then, the relation between variables was calculated using SPSS software. The results of the research showed that the number of rooms, natural view; cultural view, war, communication network, propaganda, and marketing have had the greatest effects on tourist attraction respectively.

The aim of the present study is to determine a suitable place for rubbish disposal in Shiraz. In this city, the amount of domestic and urban rubbish production is about 1420 grams (daily/per person). Rubbish disposal has always been considered as one of the important problems of officials in Shiraz Urban Services. Considering the problems of urban rubbish disposal in this city, appropriate location principles are required. In this research, various information layers such as the slope map of the area, the map of ground application, the layer of distance from city centers, soil map, the map of underground water, etc have been used for locating the city's rubbish disposal. The research method used in this study is a combination of library, statistical and analytic methods. After collecting local data in ARCGIS environment, the location of rubbish disposal was accomplished. The obtained results showed that the previous location of rubbish disposal is not appropriate from the local and geographical point of view. Considering the population growth in Shiraz during the last 30 years, and foreseeable population in future years, the necessity of finding another location is felt.

The first and the most important step for implementing the flood spread project is the selection of suitable areas susceptible to water distribution and penetration. Therefore, the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) to determine suitable areas for flood spreading would not be possible without using models such as conceptual models, and multicriteria decision making systems. The main aim of this research is to make decisions regarding suitable locations for flood spread based on the most efficient physiographic and environmental parameters. In this research, the functional operators, and conceptual mathematic models of Logic Boolean, Multiclass Maps, and Binary Evidence have been used simultaneously. This study mainly aimed at evaluating the extent to which the quality and accuracy of the simultaneous use of models and classical divisions obtained from parameters in GIS environment can be efficient for determining the location of flood spread. In this study, nine important physical and environmental parameters have been considered for preparing nine data-layers in GIS software environment. The obtained results indicate that determining the location of flood spread through GIS method, which is accomplished through matching layers and finding their common points in various maps as suitable locations, does not show the real value of the data layers. Moreover, evaluating the accuracy of models shows that the accuracy of Multi-class model is more than that of Evidence-Binary and the accuracy of Binary Evidence is more than that of Bool model regarding the recognition and classification of appropriate places for flood in the area.

Investigation of synoptic pattern is one of the most important parameters in the study of torrential rains. Since Lorestan province is located in the direction of western rainy winds, Mediterranean and Sudanese systems and the upper part of Karkhe river basin, all these factors cause the flood to rise and leave financial and economic damages. These floods occur mainly due to heavy rains in Lorestan province. These rains are created because of synoptic conditions. Poldokhtar flood (February, 2006) which occurred under Karkhe basin and in the direction of Kashkan River mainly took place as a result of heavy rainfalls in this and other upper areas, in such a way that during less than 24 hours, it rained about 92 mm in Poldokhtar region. Evaluating synoptic maps of sea level and 500 hpa related to three days before the rainfall causing the flood and the last day showed the Siberian system being strengthened and expanded on the warm waters and transferred the humidity towards Iran and Saudi Arabia till the last hours of the rainfall. It also pointed to the fall of Azores anticyclone cold air that transferred the Sudanese system to upper levels and combined it with the Mediterranean system as well as the fall of high latitude cold air by the Island low pressure and its combination with the system.