Geographic Information and Remote Sensing in Planning
Year:2011 | Volume:1 | Issue:2|Papers Count:8

Technological developments and population growth in the past two decades have led to the destruction of nature and variation in vegetation cover to satisfy the ever increasing needs of man. In order to determine the variations in the central regions of Gilan’s vegetation cover GIS and RS were applied. In this research, four satellite images (MSS 1975, TM 1989, ETM 2000 and IRS LISS III 2007) were used to extract NDVI. In addition, based on the distances from villages, buffer layers were produced; afterwards, by using zonal statistics in ArcGIS environment, the density of vegetation cover was determined. The results revealed that in various time periods, as the distance from villages increased the vegetation cover continuously became denser, and within 7000 to 8000 meters, it reached its maximum density.

The coastal area of Oman is composed of fluvial, costal and marine sedimentary units and sand dunes formation is the result of their interaction. The investigated area has a flexible nature and has witnessed great evolution including the formation of new dunes, their change, erosion and the movement of sediments. The purpose of this research was to investigate the extent of expansion of Oman’s coastal dunes under study. Photos taken in 1990 and IRS images taken from the coastal area of east of Jask in 2003 were used. In addition to the basic information, field study and RS and GIS methods were applied.

The present study attempts to explore and analyze spatial expansion of zone 1 secondary schools of Qaemshahr, and to determine the optimal positions in this zone where these centers can be established. The criteria and regulations of positioning educational centers, such as compatibility, favorability, and capacity were taken into consideration then by applying spatial models like buffering, Tyson polygons, network analysis, density and weighting methods of AHP hierarchy analysis, the required information was produced to analyze the expansion and positioning of secondary schools. After determining the scores of major and minor criteria by using AHP, fuzzy non-scaling method and the definition of increasing and decreasing functions were applied to standardize the layers. Finally, by multiplying in-group and out-group weights for each layer and combining all layers in ARCGIS software, a map of suitable locations to establish secondary schools for girls and boys was produced.

Knowledge of land use patterns and their changes over time are the main prerequisite for optimal use of national capital so extraction of land use maps must be considered as the most important goal in natural resource management framework. Accordingly, the present survey applied a digital image processing technology as an important tool for extraction of land use maps. The study area was Marand, located at the northwest of East Azerbaijan province of Iran, with cultivation and farming usage background. In the current study, HDR sensor images of SPOT 5 satellite were processed to extract land use maps of the area. In the pre-processing stage, geometric, georefrencing, orthorectification and atmospheric corrections were implemented. In the processing stage after image enhancement, images were classified in an advanced way. An object-oriented classification method was applied by means of a Nearest Neighbor Algorithm in the environment of eCognition software. The overall classification accuracy appeared to be about 95% with KIA coefficient of 0.95. Finally, in the post-processing stage, a number of Agro-Geo Databases were constructed for each of the land use classes and the results were presented in ArcGIS software environment.

Choosing disposal area is one of the important stages in management of urban residue.Considering environmental, economic and ecological destructive effects, the choice of disposal area should be precisely and scientifically carried out. The present progressive - applied study follows an analytic - descriptive method. First, based on reliable sources, the criteria and principles of positioning urban disposal area are stated. Then according to Yazd information layers, such as, steepness, wind direction, lands proportion, communication network, population density, and surface water, the most convenient disposal area is implemented, and finally the best preventive and controlling option is chosen to manage the residue. The results show that the rate of daily domestic residue was 272167 kg in 2010. This means the total produced waste of 570.3 tons per day in 2006 has increased to 744 tons per day in 2010. In addition, using semi-mechanized, manual, and mechanized methods and observing the time of residue collection resulted in correct routing of trucks and cost reduction. The analysis of combined information layers displayed that the best disposal position in Yazd is the northeast regions toward north considering the appropriate distance from manufacturing plants. Therefore, for optimal management of solid residue of Yazd, source separation - aerobic biological processing - RDF - securing and stabilizing domestic residue - disposal is suggested as the best option due to environmental reasons, public acceptance, complexity and lower sensitivity.

Hamoon is a shallow tectonic subsidence that is located as a flat plain between Harirud fault in west and Afghanistan’s Chaman fault in east. It is a place where waters from Hindu Kush and Iran aggregate. In this study, GIS technique was used to analyze the geomorphic areas of Hamoon basin.The results revealed that this area signifies the performance of fluvial formation systems, wind and tectonic which have created mountains in the west basin, as well as concave and smooth surfaces. The flat surfaces level with playa floor with a slight slope of 0 to 9 percent. This formation system has also created various geoforms such as fan deltas, gullies, sand dunes and butts. Geologically, Hamoon basin is uniform and is generally formed from Quaternary sediments, but it is impervious due to the fine- grained elements, clay and silt. In addition, the existence of butts in this area expresses a long period of erosion.

Tourism development and management of rangelands can reduce the adverse impact on pastures, destruction of water resources, soil and vegetation, and can lessen erosion. This study attempts to determine the effective criteria in ecotourism and tourism use of rangelands, tourist destinations in the rangelands under study, and ultimately achieve sustainable development in their proper management. To identify the criteria and assess the scope of pastures for tourism, parametric evaluation based on optimal combination was used. Accordingly, the criteria for the condition of land, soil, environmental hazards, water resources, vegetation, and climate as environmental factors, and natural, historical and cultural attraction criteria, access, land use and outing demand as social and economic factors were considered to evaluate the capacity of Tarikdareh watershed for natural tourism. Application of GIS and the aforementioned measures revealed that 156000 square meters (15.6 hectares) of this area is suitable for intensive outing and the remaining area (5138 hectares) for extensive outing. Considering climatic criteria, in this region, natural tourism is highly desirable in the months of August, July, June, September, and May respectively.Based on the ecological, economic and social criteria, nine outing zones were selected as situations or options to be selected as desired areas for intensive outing in the area; in addition, the score of each zone was determined. Finally, according to the scores and the availability of each indicator, the zones were prioritized.

The energy evolution in this century and the need for renewable sources of energy has led to developments in using wind energy and constructing wind power plants. Accordingly, determining the appropriate locations for wind power plants should be based on various factors and criteria. Considering the importance of integrating information, in this study, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was selected, Expert Choice software was implemented, and for modeling, spatial analysis and integration of data, GIS software environment was used. Based on Khuzestan’s building wind power stations capability, weak, moderate, good, and excellent zones were determined. Finally, the findings indicated that GIS as a decision support system contributes to preparing the data, modeling priorities, expressing experts’ opinions about various factors and selecting appropriate locations to build power plants. Moreover, the results indicated that compared to other methods, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is of higher flexibility in modeling logical relations, and determining reciprocal effects of parameters on each other and on site selection.