GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
Year:2004 | Volume:19 | Issue:3(74)|Papers Count:10

Iran"s spatial and regional planning is based on capitalistic principles. This has led to an unequal spatial organization and subsequently to class conflicts. While the constitutions of Islamic Republic of Iran stresses on social justice and a well balanced regional planning, the present article makes attempts to draw geographer"s attention to the issue of using political thoughts and ideology in spatial planning and land reclamation. It further tries to show that geography without philosophy will go astray and geographers with no philosophical thinking are no more than workmen of knowledge. The author also presents examples of spatial organization with regard to agricultural, rural, urban issues on the bases of capitalistic views in the Iranian states after 1952. The article wants Iranian geographers to analyse and criticize spatial and land reclamational plans in order to find the most desirable strategies for the implementation of social justice and balanced regional planning in the country.

It is a fact that human beings are born neither lawmen nor criminals but it is the unhealthy social environment that is basically responsible for the distorted, and defective attitude of a growing child towards his own self, towards others and social norms and codes of behavior -resulting in delinquency. Two research projects were carried out in the provice of Yazd and the results drawn from the study can be shown as follows: The young delinquents are victims of ignorant and careless families, and the unhealthy, defective environment is actually the cause of their delinquency. These children can be called "crime-victims". Since they are found all over the world, UNISEF, in 1999 suggested a new plan in accordance with "Children Rights". This project has strongly supported the juvenile delinquents, in the Juvenile courts. In Iran the problem of "crime-victim" can be reduced by both carefully following rule 30 of the Iranian constitutional law and having careful supervision over the implementation of rule number 77. i. e. operational rules of schools. It was noted that the application of these rules helped reduce delinquency among children and the adolescents.

Neor lake is a geomorphological graben which was formed as a result of earth structural elements. Neor fault and the fault west of the lake which have been active since Eocene period, are the chief factors in the formation and eyolution of Neor lake. The lake has been formed during glacial cold in which rainfall was more and evaporation seems to be less than today. As a result more water poured into the lake and made it full. It is therefore believed that the basin of the Neor lake is related to an external drainage network, Ghara-so. Due to the high altitude of the region, the erosion of the drainage network in the Ghara-so sub-catchments, has been more active in the past than it is now. This erosion has resulted in the destruction of andeset and basalt rocks. Various landforms in the basin of Neor lake such as alluvial fans, have been formed where the lake connects the mountain. Scree, nivation,etc are also created. In this paper we will study the evolution and morphogenesis factors of land formation and geomorphological phenomena in Neor region.

At the first stage of this study climatic data of the 41 synoptic stations of Iran were considered using "Cluster Analysis" method and then five homogenous climatic regions were determined on the basis of obtained results. At the second stage five representative stations were selected for each climatic regions. Variations of the minimum and maximum temperature and monthly total precipitation fiom 1966 to 1995 were examined using "Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average" (SARIMA) method. A stochastic model was developed for each representative station. The innovation variance and "F" test were applied for detecting variability"s of the climatic factors considered in this study. The results obtained show that the variability of climatic factors was not evenly distributed throughout the study period. In other words, minimum temperature in the northern regions (Caspian Seashore) and mountainous areas comparing the other parts of the country has significant differences and maximum temperature in the vast areas of the country except the southern parts (Persian Gulf and Oman Seashores) has detected significant variation. On the other hand, monthly total precipitation doesn"t show significant statistical variations except for the margin areas of central deserts. Lack of trends in considered climatic factors is in line with other similar researches.

Gechi Ghal-a"ssi stock is located on the northern slope of Misho Dagh in East Azerbaijan of Iran. Past geomorphological evaluation of high altitude slope in Gechi Ghal-a"ssi and adjacent slopes, was largely based on hypothetical or macro- scale geomorphic approaches. Consequently, the information pertaining to high altitude Misho -Dagh"s Quaternary slope environments has remained rather rudimentary. The present study describes the morphology of the region and discusses the likely palaeogeomorphic processes of debris deposites on the Gechi Ghal-a"ssi and adjacent north-facing slopes. Shattered bedrock near the summit of Gechi Ghal-a"ssi , is closely associated with several slope landforms such as blocky slope deposits(block fields, block streams and blocky slopes) and talus which grade the downslope. The landforms are primarily related to seasonal fiost creep at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) when this area have a cold/humid climates, and secondly, are influenced hardly by the slope face and the duration of sunlight radiation. Rock glaciers and mass movements have had important role in transferring deposits to the downslope. At present, the formation of talus, block strips, mud boils and talusy ice core on the slops of study area are resulted fiom active seasonal frost/melt processes.

Assessment of the environmental impact in Karoon restoration project has been done after collecting and analyzing data and considering various impacts of the project on the environment according to the methods of network,simple check list, and visual matrix. In this study, the immediate environmental conditions of the region were considered and the quality and quantity parameters were compared and assessed according to national standards. In the absence of standards for some cases, the rate of variations compared with present conditions and the effect on sensitive factors of environmont, and in some other cases experts" judgements were taken into account. Based on this approach and in the first step, data due to implemental and technical alternative were assessed considering triple purposes of the project (including flood control, water resources planning and navigation), with the interrelation action effect network method, and then various kinds of impact have been evaluated by simple checklist, and fInally the significance and importance of impacts were assessed by symbol matrixes. Coefficients for evaluating the impacts were determined based upon their significance and importance, percentage of effects on environmental factors, and the most important effects on sensitive factors of the environment. In order to generalize the triple purposes of project and determine the common factors affected by project the composing matrix is used. In this matrix, common factors have been selected based upon coefficient of evaluating of the activities and the envivnomental impacts. The positive and negative impacts of each distinct activity of the project has been calculated. The results of the above mothods showed that positive impacts of superior technical alternative are more than negative ones. In order to reduce negative impacts on the area of the project various policies are recommended such as environmental management methods like performance accuracy, renewing habitats in the river bed, and in the nearby zones via reculturation of the plant cover, protection of laying beds for aqutic creatures, and prevention of establishing dikes in woods. As the last step, some approaches for control and monitoring of environmental quality parameters and also some accurate guidelines to control each environmental factors have been presented. In this manner environmental condition will face the least damage and the final goals of the karoon restoration project will be achieved.

Shortage of water resources is one of the major obstacles regarding sustainable development in Iran and some other countries. In order to handle this situation, precipitation enhancement project can be used as a modern method to solve this problem. In order to perform these projects, a series of scientific research concerning the conditions of different areas should be done to have successful precipitation enhancement projects. Although the main part of these studies are the site selection studies, the scientific bases for PEPs including the climatology of clouds and precipitation, winds and upper air currents in different types of weather having special characteristics in standard levels of the atmosphere, and synoptic and thermodynamic atmospheric conditions are important indicators for air situation such as stability and instability. So studying these factors can provide PEP planners with necessary information. The present research has been performed in Shir- kuh region, using the data of wind and humidity in the upper atmosphere of Bandar Abbass, Kerman and Shiraz stations and the earth"s surface wind data of kerman ,Bandar Abbass, Baft, Yazd and Shiraz synoptic stations. Findings of this research show that the highest frequencies of winds and air flows in standard levels are in the west and south- west of this region, in rainy cold months. In rainy days the prevailing winds at the surface are between 170°- 360° and more than 80 percent of the winds blowing in the western regions are at the 700 Hpa level. In the same rainy days, the direction of the prevailing winds in the middle and upper levels of atmosphere in these stations is between 180°-330°. Considering the direction of south and south-west and even south-east winds in rainy days and the fact that they receive heat and humidity while passing the south waters and strike the southern slops of the mountains, when they enter centeral Iran and shir- kuh, they can play an important role in increasing instability and precipitation. The above mentioned positive points are very important in forecasting the rainy days in order to challenge the problem of water shortage in this region and to carry out the precipitation enhancement projects as shown in this research.

Soil erosion is one of the main problems of watersheds in Iran. It can also be considered as one of the most important obstacles in achieving sustainable development in agriculture and natural resources. The sediments from the erosion of watershed catchments usually reach the river after each rainfall, and are combined with the sediments from the river walls and beds, and, as a result, endanger the effective life of dam storage. As such, quantitative and qualitative study of the soil erosion is vitally important in long term water structure plans. Since the initial study of constructing a dam across the Chikhab river (Moosian Plain in the Province of Ham) is currently underway, the present article makes attempts to present a model and investigate the erosion and sediment of the watersheds in the study area quantitatively, as well as, qualitatively. Methods for determining soil erosion and the river sediments were evaluated, and the optimum procedures were adopted. Using PSIAC method in a GIS environment, the information layers are produced, adequately weighted, and combined. The given catchments were divided into 576 sediment yield units from which 504 units are located in upper part of the likely dam. The minimum and maximum amounts of produced sediment were estimated 1.6 and 27.3 tons per hectare annually. The total amount of produced sediment calculated was 505737.3 tons per year, and the amount of the catchments deposit in the dam area reached 397298/3 tons per year equal to 264865/5 cubic meters. In terms of erosional classes and the sediment yield, the given catchments were divided into four classes of low, average, high and very high. In this category the given catchment falls in the high erosion class.

Deevan Daghi-Daredeez ranges are predominantly-comprised of sedimentary rocks including dolomites, shale, and marl (90%). The severe impact of tectonic forces especially on resistible and fragile formations has led to great expanses of crumbled and demolished area through creation of both major and minor faults. New tectonic activities and prevalence of pre glacial erosion system namely over 1700 meter high through collapse of scarps, resulted in very typical, protracted and individual debris flows in the region. Debris flows are more pronounced in scarps resulted from active faults, and side carving of drainages. Occasionally, their continual movement might block transit Marand-Jolfa railroad. Debris flows basically have individual nature, and are usually displaced through human activities. Linear correlation and regression analysis were applied in order to determine both direction and intensity of the relationship. According to the finding of this study, there exists high correlation between debris flows and the above mentioned factors. Furthermore, some controlling measures were proposed to reduce their movement.

Due to the phenomenon of climatic interaction, multivariate statistical techniques have gained more attention in climatic modeling. One of the applied fields of multivariate techniques is spatial change in climatic elements modeling. Proper application of these techniques makes it possible to model and simulate these elements with more certainty. In this way, correlation between independent variable may cause wrong results. Then it is necessary to pay more attention to this correlation that is called multicolinearity. For example, if we look for interaction of climatic factors such as longitude, latitude and altitude with precipitation, we must remove the correlation between these factors and then calculate the correlation of every one of them with precipitation. This can be obtained by Ridge Regression method and partial correlation function. In this paper, the author defines multivariate regression and its application in analysis of precipitation in Esfahan province spatial change. To define the relationship between precipitation and the other factors (longitude, latitude and altitude) 32 maps of precipitation for Esfahan province based on Kriging interpolation prepared for 1969-2000. Based on algebraic map technique the 32-year map of mean precipitation was created. At last the average map changed to digital values for 2845 points representative of all pixel in the average map of Esfahan precipitation. Then the statistical methods were used for these 2845 points of longitude, latitude, altitude and precipitation. The independent variables (longitude, latitude and altitude) have multicolinearity. Then there are unreality coefficients in spatial function of precipitation because of multicolinearity in longitude (λ), latitude (Ø) and altitude (h). The regression function obtained as follow: R =1765.578- 27.789Ø- 6.254λ+ 0.003921h Therefore, Ridge regression method was used to describe precipitation spatial variation in Esfahan province. The regression coefficients were adjusted based on Variation Inflation Factor (VIF) by 0.01 interval. The VIF measured variance of coefficients. We can minimize it until it becomes unbiased .The result by this method is as folIow: R =1738.95-19.91λ - 8.76Ø+0.03 h Based on the above model longitude (λ), latitude (Ø) and altitude (h) affect precipitation by magnitude coefficients respectively. But because of more elevation variability in Esfahan province (900 - more than 4000 meter), the effect of this factor is more significant. The regression and determination coefficient for the model are 0.67934 and 46.15 percent respectively.