Journal of Environmental Studies
Year:2012 | Volume:38 | Issue:62|Papers Count:18

Introduction: Land use planning is the process of allocating different land uses and activities to the special land units. By considering the role of industries in development, employment and environment, in this paper industrial and especially intensive energy industries’ planning was considered as a multi objective optimization problem. Although, during the last decades linear programming was used for solving this problem, recent researches trends to use evolutionary algorithms. NSGA-II method has been used in this paper. In this paper Isfahan province has been considered as the case study area. Isfahan, because of its geographical location and infrastructural facilities has been one of the industrial poles. Various data such as main roads, railroads, mines, power transmission lines, gas transmission lines, rivers, faults, lakes, city regions, sensitive ecological areas have been used as factor maps to locate industrial site.

Introduction: Perhaps one of the great causes of migrations of Aryan tribes, five thousand years ago, from the territory of northern Asia, Iran, India and Europe which caused great changes in human life and civilizations was to reach new pastures. Since human food supply is mainly from agriculture and animal husbandry, and water resources, land, livestock and pasture are limited, providing food products from these resources needs proper use and scientific attention to these resources and to maximize the utilization and maintenance of them. Natural resources have an important status in social and economic development of the world. Unfortunately, in many countries especially in developing countries, increasing population, rapid urbanization, lack of knowledge about importance of natural resources along with inappropriate planning resulted in rapid degradation of forests and rangelands.

Introduction: According to the limited areas of forests compared to the world average and severe degradation of forests, especially in recent years, and the occurrence of natural disasters such as floods and droughts caused by the destruction of forests, the necessity of planning is obvious. This planning should be providing of economical, social and environmental needs of recent generation and conserve these resources for other generation in long run, also.

Introduction: Population growth has increased the pressure on natural areas and the inappropriate utilization of lands and land use changes have caused different reactions of ecosystems. Human activities such as vegetation destruction and inappropriate agricultural techniques change the natural mechanisms. Land use change is one of the main factors of changes in the ecological systems, which influences on biodiversity and climate. To preserve natural environment, environmental planning should be based on the land sustainable development. Land use change may occur by factors such as drought, fire, flood, volcanic activity and human activities such as livestock grazing, urban development and agricultural lands development. There are researches which concluded that urban development and soil erosion has increased change in central Apennine in Italy from 1954 to 1985 due to land use changes.

Introduction: The atmospheric CO2 has increased by population increase and fuel utilization and land use changing. Thus, CO2 increased from 288 ppm to 387 ppm during 1850-1998. Atmospheric CO2 should decrease and sequester in different forms. Carbon sequestration is changing atmospheric CO2 to organic carbon by plants and soil. Hence, carbon sequestration by plants and soil is the easiest and cheapest way for pollution reduction. Carbon sequestration potential is different in different biological forms of plants. Rangelands are among the most important ecosystems that have high capacity for carbon sequestration. This study investigates the plant forms ability for carbon sequestration in Miankaleh rangelands.

Introduction: The protection of environment, in which the present as well as the future generations have a right to flourish social existence, is regarded as a public duty in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Economic and other activities which inevitably involve pollution of the environment or cause irreparable damage to it are therefore forbidden.To protect environment, as the related rules provide, some areas in Iran that have environmentally prominent aspects are recognized as protected areas to prevent the mankind to encroach in these areas.

Introduction: In recent years, increasing population, vehicles and industrial growth have caused air pollution that is initiated many environmental problems and damaged public health. In Tehran metropolis, increasing machine life and human activities on one hand and extreme topographic conditions and natural factors on the other hand has led the city to be the most polluted city of the world. Due to the necessity of preventing and reducing risks of air pollution, acquiring good knowledge of various aspects of this issue is very important.

Introduction: Annually, approximately 400 million tons of wastes have been produced by Iran livestock industry (cattle and poultry) and agriculture sector. This means that an integrated waste management system is really necessary. In the past few decades, large amounts of animal manure and slurries have been produced by animal breeding sector as well as wet organic waste streams, which represents a constant pollution risk with a potential negative impact on the environment, if not managed optimally. When untreated or poorly managed, animal manure becomes a major source of air and water pollution. Nutrient leaching, mainly nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia evaporation and pathogen contamination are some of the major threats. Animal production sector is responsible for 18% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Introduction: Large quantities of sludge are produced in biological wastewater treatment. This kind of sludge or biosolids are very putrescible. The primary sludge being produced in primary sedimentation tank is very putrescible, odorous, and grey, from which 60 -70 percent is volatile solids. The secondary sludge being produced in primary sedimentation tank is brown, odourless and highly microbial containing 70-80 percent volatile solids. The sludge with these properties has problems not less than domestic wastewater. Therefore, the sludge should be stabilized for safe utilization and disposal in environment.

Introduction: According to the fact that almost all forms of mechanical dewatering needs foreign specific technology, special efforts were concentrated to optimize the use of drying beds.The main disadvantage of sludge drying beds is their large land requirement. This will limit the use of conventional drying beds to areas where sufficient land is available.To optimize and facilitate the operation of sludge dewatering beds, some assumptions are considered in this study that their purpose is to compare the technical characteristics of effluent and the retention time of sludge cake on the bed with control pilot.

Introduction: Environmental assessment gives an overall view of the system, which helps managers for decision making. One of these assessments is the river water quality zoning. There are different methods, which can be used for this purpose, such as Horton method, NSFWQI method, and modified NSFWQI method. However, some defects are revealed, such as lack of clear border between classes, the uncertainty in the quality criteria, the vagueness or fuzziness in the output values and not considering water usage. The need for an advanced classification method based on fuzzy theory has been recognized for a long time. Fuzzy Comprehensive Assessment or simply FCA, use fuzzy set theory to assess objects, in which the uncertainty involved in this process are explained via membership functions.Weight determination has always been concerned in zoning methods. One of the most popular methods which have been used with FCA is information entropy. In this case, each parameter in each station has a unique weight coefficient.

Introduction: Considering the increased use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture in recent decades and increasing risks of diseases and environmental hazards in human societies, the standards of remaining pesticides in food and agricultural products are required to be considered. In this study, residues of Chlorpyrifos (C8H11Cl3NO3P S) and Diazinon in apple in the Damavand region were evaluated. The increase in the world population and the lack of food resources have caused agricultural methods producing more food to be developed. The increasing use of fertilizer products and pesticides reduce the damage caused by diseases, weeds and plant pests. However, it makes the residue of pesticides in agricultural products increase. It is important to use pesticides correctly. Obtaining the compliance period of pesticides has causes people to stay healthy. Nevertheless, sometimes it is not respected. Therefore, it seems that reviewing pesticide residues in apple fruit in Damavand region is essential. Climatic diversity in the city of Damavand has provided the possibility of producing and promoting many kinds of fruits. The amount of land horticulture in this city is 9575 ha. Apple gardens area is about 7100 hectares. Peaches and nectarine gardens area is 797 hectares; cherry, 480 hectares; and walnut, 550 hectares; There are 508 ha of greenhouse areas.

Introduction: One of the most important characteristics of pathogenic bacteria which influenced water resources is their survival ability under natural condition. Most of the bacteria cannot survive more than 60 days after being excreted from living bodies, unless minimum optimized condition is provided for them, because environmental conditions are unfavorable for bacteria. The survival of bacteria in soil depends on several factors including bacterial species, competition with other microorganisms, type of manure and its application style, soil moisture, soil temperature, nutrient availability, soil aeration and its soluble salts, soil pH and texture and some other factors. Extractions of soil saturation paste with salinity higher than 25 dS m-1 have adverse effect on microorganism activity. Researches showed that rapid passage of water through soil profile caused severe changes in osmotic pressure of soil solution, which has high effects on microorganism survival. Given that soil moisture is the main affecting factor on bacterial survival, appropriate soil moisture for bacterial survival is nearly 75% to 100% of field capacity (FC).

Introduction: Intra-city natural structures have always had a key role in creating sustainable urban green spaces; natural structures such as river-valleys, hillsides, lakes and forests, guarantee the endurance, Sustainability and longevity of the natural quality of city. On the other hand, they are considered as tourism targets, which also make them vulnerable for tourism damages. In Tehran, the river-valleys have been the target of recreational activities for ages, according to their desirable climate and abundance of running water. Darband river- valley is one of the natural treasures of Tehran, which has been damaged according to the city growth and the ignorance of its environmental, historical and functional values.

Introduction: Nowadays, landscape is considered as one of the most important and vital components in environmental identity recognition and also as a tool in connecting environment and its inhabitants. The most significant case in the past decades is the connection between landscape and its inhabitants through biological, physical and also perceptional and behavioral approaches. Among the mentioned approaches, landscape and its connection with people’s perception is valued with great importance. Although human's connection with its surrounding is achieved through different senses, still more than 80 percent of its connection is achieved by observing. Therefore, landscape observation and its perception by human, plays an important role in the environmental recognition and perception and also determining whether a landscape is aesthetically appropriate or not.