Geographic Information and Remote Sensing in Planning
Year:2010 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

The growth of population and the consequent development of cities has led to problems concerning transporting goods and people. Urban development has also increased the demand for travel. The conducted studies show that the existing public transportation system does not fulfill this demand and has caused many problems such as traffic congestion, air pollution, increased fuel consumption, depreciation of vehicles, etc. On the other hand, the increased travel demand in the future, particularly in developing countries, justifies the ever increasing use of public transportation system. Therefore, improving public transportation system, specifically bus system, is a necessity. This improvement is possible in two ways, one of which is the bus system reform that can be accomplished on two levels. One is promoting the system through changes applied to bus transportation network in terms of bus routes, number of lines, designing a new network, and the other is improving the lines performance. Therefore, designing a bus fleet network with the aim of improving public transportation is of utmost importance. In this study, one of the crowded areas of Ahwaz, Golestan region, was taken as our sample. Taking criteria and indicators in bus routing into consideration, using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information system (GIS), new routes were identified and 8 factors to create a bus line were recognized. By applying the factors and specifying the nearest bus route, 15 bus lines of the 17 lines passing Golestan region underwent changes in some parts.

Urban lands use is one of the basic concepts in urban planning which requires detailed study and examination. In this study, Sarasiab-malard, as one of the populated quarters of Tehran and Karaj suburbs, was investigated. A descriptive-analytic method was used to identify and evaluate the existing situation. Using optimum criteria and standards in green space use, the research concentrated on the analysis and evaluation of public green space use in Sarasiab and focused on its distribution. Benefiting GIS, it also observed urban green space priority, its compatibility and other usages. Analysis of GIS data and studying the existing status of the area resulted in some suggestions for positioning public green space in the quarter concerning their usage hierarchy.

Nowadays, one of the problems and difficulties of urban life is accommodation and place of living. The charge and tax of rebuilding and dwelling has been the point of attention for urban managers as it has been a source of income for municipality for a long time. Estimating the municipality’s income from taxes of dwelling needs an up to date and accurate model which maps any change in the parameters affecting the land price onto the computed taxes. This research uses GIS as it is the tool to integrate and analyze spatial and non-spatial data simultaneously. Moreover, with regard to the methods of property valuation, such as, Hedonic, ANN, MRA, and Geostatistics methods, this study focuses on MRA to evaluate the effectiveness of factors in property evaluation and to avoid inappropriate use of factors.

In this study, the potential areas to cultivate rice in Lorestan province were studied using GIS. First, environmental conditions, especially climatic conditions, affecting rice cultivation were investigated to determine climatic thresholds. After gathering basic climatic data and statistical analysis, required digital maps including topography map, drainage network, soil resources were provided in 1: 250000 scale, and afterwards, all related attributed data was fed into GIS database. Then, using GIS spatial functions isomaps, such as slope gradient map, and isohyets map, were prepared. Then, the data was classified and weighed and the potential map was produced. The produced map, existing land use map and drainage map were jointly used to identify the areas that have economical benefits to be changed from current land use to rice cultivation. The results indicated that about 28000 square kilometers that is 27 percent, of the province had high potentiality for rice cultivation.

Copper exploration through new and advanced technologies is especially important for different dimensions of economical management. Thus, correct recognition of ores, geological positions, hosted stones and proper conditions for creating ores are essential factors. In this study, weight evidence method is used to determine the site relationship between effective factors in Copper creation and random samples. According to this method, the maximum relationship between coincident samples and faults and fractures is at a distance of 500 meters, and between samples and heavy mineral anomalies, it is at 1000 meters. For geochemical anomalies, optimum distance is 500 meters.These distances provide evidence concerning the role of aforementioned factors in Copper creation. Moreover, it shows that the areas in-between original faults are appropriate zones for Copper creation and hosted stones of Copper.In addition to the factors mentioned, alteration layers and appropriate hosted stone units layer have been used to be overlaid in GIS. Optimum alteration areas are extracted from false color composite of 4/7, 4/3, 2/1 of ASTER image of TERRA satellite. Through geological map (1: 20000) and field observations, the optimum volcanic units, which contain KV1 and KV2, are extracted. Fuzzy logic is used for modeling and overlaying different layers. After distribution of fuzzy membership values, according to the importance of each class, different maps are overlaid. The area under study is divided into four classes: high, low, medium and no Copper potential.

Landsat thermal band measures the emitted radiation of the earth surface. In many studies, the ETM+ thermal band with 60 meter resolution is excluded from processing and classification despite the valuable information content. In this study, the effectiveness of spectral and thermal band information in the identification of different lands in an arid region (Chejam playa) is evaluated using Landsat ETM+data. In this research, the data of Landsat 7 (ETM+) Path/Row 163-35 dated 20 July 2000 is used. Using Visual - Digital Analysis (VDA), such as color composite, feature space and spectral band analysis, homogeneous classes were selected. Then based on field works, data and GPS points, land classes were defined. The surface thermal map is produced by converting the DN values to radiance using calibration information. In order to study the role of thermal band and its contribution to accuracy improvement, four band combinations (with and without thermal band) were processed using maximum likelihood classifiers algorithm. The result showed that, for such a study, thermal bands despite lower resolution are essential for differentiating arid lands such as alluvial silty loam (alluvial plain) and torrential saline clay (flood plain). Moreover, thermal band includes valuable information and can improve accuracy.

The use of geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing to facilitate the estimation of runoff from watersheds and agricultural fields has gained increasing attention in recent years. This is mainly due to the fact that rainfall runoff models include both spatial and geomorphological variations. The US Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Conservation Service Curve Number (USDA-NRCS-CN) method was used in this study to determine the runoff depth. Runoff curve number was determined based on the factors of hydrologic soil group, land use, land form, and hydrologic conditions. Moreover, GIS and remote sensing were used to provide quantitative measurements of drainage basin morphology as input to the model to estimate runoff. The study was conducted in Paskooh Ghayen. Land use was extracted from Landsat images (2000). The process of determining spatially distributed runoff curve numbers from Landsat images is presented in this study using GIS and image processing software. In addition, spatially distributed runoff curve numbers and runoff depth are determined for the watershed for different land use classes. Results of the study show that soil groups that are D are important in runoff production.

An attractive way other than the current unstable path is sustainable development. The increasing vulnerability of human societies and the development of conventional patterns and erosion of environmental resources have proposed the need for sustainable development. The approval of statement 21 and UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 1993 provided the opportunity to operationalize sustainable development, stability indicators and assessment. To align with the assessment process of sustainability indicators, a descriptive and analytical methodology has been adopted and data and documents (using observation and questionnaire) have been collected from Sarband selected sector as a part of Shazand, to assess rural areas social sustainability. In this study, initially, the theoretical and conceptual framework of sustainable development and strategic sustainability indicators are proposed. Then appropriate processes to design and evaluate social sustainability indicators are defined and operationalized. Finally, social sustainability indicators based on sustainability assessment criteria and systemic criteria model are first normalized and after giving weight (using AHP techniques) are measured (using TOPSIS mode) in GIS software environment.Research findings suggest that the social sustainability indicators and status defined based on systemic criteria and spatial dimensions (location, size and distance) have a distinct pattern.