Physical Geography Research
Year:2017 | Volume:48 | Issue:4|Papers Count:12

Introduction: Land use and land cover change (LUCC) is a complex issue resulted from biophysical, socioeconomic, cultural, organizational and technological factors in different spatial and temporal scales. LUCCs have both direct and indirect effects on the environment not only globally but also locally. LUCC is considered as an important threat to biodiversity as causing the fragmentation, natural vegetation destruction and natural areas isolation. The regions which managed by environmental protection organizations all over the world are established based on a common goal to maintain biodiversity. Current insufficient preservative and management actions in the protected areas (especially in Iran) are unable to guarantee the areas protection. Therefore, analyzing previous and current land use and land cover (LULC) status and predicting the future pattern within and surrounding protected areas are likely to provide more efficient information for proper natural resources management. RS data is cost effective means to detect changes on the Earth's surface and provide up to date information. Over the last decades, several methods and models are developed for extracting LULC maps, detecting LUCCs and modelling the future pattern using remotely sensed data. The objective of this study is to analyze spatiotemporal patterns of LUCC from the past to the future within Dizmar protected area in Iran. Firstly, LULC maps of 1989, 2000 and 2013 were extracted and then future LULC was predicted using CA-Markov models from 2013 to 2037....

Introduction: When it comes to the ancient settlement patterns and how to set in a region, the role of environment and its infrastructure in a geographical landscape will be highlighted. Distribution of population and human settlements in a geographical area has a great influence on the structure and function of human activities. Not only will these distribution patterns be affected by social and cultural factors, they were highly dependent on natural phenomena; because nature is a context of human geographical activities....

Introduction: The MODIS facility for the Earth Observing System is a key element that supports ambitious goals related to studying the Earth as a system. One of the MODIS products is high quality land surface temperature data produced in Terra and Aqua platforms. Knowledge of the LST provides information on the temporal and spatial variations of the surface equilibrium state and is of fundamental importance in many applications. Therefore, it is required to conduct a wide variety of climatic, hydrological, ecological, and biogeochemical studies. Due to the intrinsic scanning characteristics of the MODIS instrument onboard the polar-orbiting satellites, the differences in local solar time for pixels along a given scan line on the same day or for the same pixel on different days in one revisit period can be detected for 2 hours. As LST changes with local solar time, it is not possible to directly compare the LST of different pixels in the same day or of the same pixels in different days. Awareness about slope of land surface temperature is an important factor for cognition of land surface temperature behavior that can be used for increasing spatial and temporal resolution, comparability with other data, and accuracy achievement. The results will help calculate a time consistent land surface temperature.....

Introduction: The complexity of the phenomenon of time and its meaning has always been considered an obstacle to understanding the nature of time. Time is an important phenomenon in detailed discussions about its nature, particularly in philosophy and physics filed. Sun, Earth and rotations should be considered a major factor in the definition of the concept of astronomical time. The effect of twenty-four-hour in organisms is consisted of the large part of their biological activities. Even questions about the latitude of more than 70 degrees as well. This question is deeply connecting us to other concepts of time events....

Introduction: Atmospheric circulation patterns result in different weather conditions. Rainfall changes are controlled by seasonal and irregular variations of atmospheric circulation pattern. A variety of climate changes such as drought and flood can result in changes in the spatio-temporal precipitation, one of the important parameters of heterogeneity in moisture transmission and injection in the rainy systems of Iran. One component of the atmospheric circulation of moisture transmission is the high pressure centers and the most important point is their location on the water surface....

Introduction Flood is an inevitable natural phenomenon occurring from time to time in all rivers and natural drainage systems, which not only damages the lives, natural resources and environment, but it also causes the loss of economy and health. Thus, estimation and prediction of flood hazard is very important spatially in the watersheds without measurement stations. There are many models in the water and environmental studies for investigation about the runoff and flood in the watersheds without measurement stations. One of the newest is cellular automata model that has been combined well with the GIS for simulation of runoff and flood hazard.

Introduction: Air pollution as one of the most important technological risks of contemporary era is mainly resulted from the emergence of large cities and fast growing industries. One of the main objectives of climatic and environmental studies is to survey atmospheric pollutions. Tabriz is one of the metropolises where air pollution is a problem. However, what is essential to consider the severity of air pollution in the city of Tabriz is the function of atmospheric processes that act widely. In this case temperature inversion is one of the most important factors. Weather condition of each single day is affected by synoptic conditions. Therefore, sometimes it can result in stability and tranquility in the atmospheric conditions and due to the concentration of pollutants in lower atmospheric layers and the lack of or poor atmospheric motions, the severity of pollution increases. Given the importance of weather stability in the occurrence of atmospheric problems, it seems essential to investigate the synoptic conditions of Tabriz city during critical air pollution periods and providing recommendations and preventive measures. For this reason, the present article aims to investigate the cause of severe and periodic air pollutions in Tabriz.....

Introduction: Recent global warming has led to a change in the global hydrological cycle and an increase in extreme events such as flood and drought at the global and continental scales. However, at the regional scale, the magnitude of warming and the resulting changes in water resources are different from one region to another. Unlike air temperature whose increase is evident throughout the world, there is no unique and defined pattern for global precipitation changes. In recent years, climatic changes and precipitation can decrease in water level of the Lake Urmia. Extension of salt flats near the lake has caused many adverse environmental and economic effects. This necessitates the analysis of precipitation changes as the main input of the lake and one of the possible reasons for the water level decrease. Most of the previous studies on precipitation trends have been performed using data from sparse synoptic stations. Therefore, this study analyzed precipitation time series from a dense rain gauge network in the Urmia Lake basin at the annual and seasonal scales....

Introduction: Water resources management in arid and semi-arid areas is very important to provide water for stakeholders. In recent decades, construction of underground dams has been considered for the issue, because of its advantages. These dams have many advantages, e. g., unlike a surface dam, land is not submerged to store water and there is no danger of breaching due to natural or manmade disasters. The surface area can be used in the same way both before and after construction of the underground dam. A subsurface dam is a facility that stores groundwater in the pores of strata and uses groundwater in a sustainable way. Underground dams are used for various purposes such as prevention of combining salt water and fresh water, reserve water for management using and creating an obstacle against influencing water to structures. The water gathered in subsurface dams has good quality for drinking, as it has been filtered by the sand and is stored underground away from contamination. The aim of this research is to identify the areas suitable for underground dam construction, so that in these areas there is no limit to the underground dam and then appropriate priorities in these areas.....

Introduction: Present research is a wide reflection of coordination of archeology and geography based on different geographical components to examine the role of geography in forming human communities with the wide view and to introduce catcher of its role in absorbing and nonabsorbing primary societies. The emergence concept of primary societies should be analyzed based on geography. From this perspective, geography of eastern bank plain of Alvand is less considered that includes large area of Hamadan province with different mountain plains and basins surrounded by different bumps and folds such as Hamadan– Bahar, Ghahavand, Kaboudrahang and Razan-Famenin plains to Avaj Mountains. By studying Alvand eastern bank, two factors of the place of this basin in the cold and dry geography, with respect to its height degree from the sea level (1500 to 2000 m), and also lack of mineral resources of raw material outcrops (ChertStone) for industry of primary societies (Paleolithic to Neolithic) are the most important agents of non-absorbing settlement of human primary societies in this basin......