GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY
Year:2006 | Volume:37 | Issue:54|Papers Count:16

Iran is located in the mid-latitude dry zone. The mean annual temperature of the country is about 18 degrees Celsius. During the past 50 years, positive and negative trends in temperature time series in Iran can be seen. In order to evaluate the trends, temperature records from Jan.1951 to Dec. 2000 were examined using about 414000 observations throughout Iran. Kriging interpolator was applied to monthly temperature records and 600 maps with a spatial resolution of 15×15 Km have been made. So each map consists of 7238 pixels. In order to detect the spatial pattern of temperature trends, time series of maximum, mean, and minimum temperature over every pixel of the maps have been analyzed using least squares regressions. This trend analysis suggests that the mean annual temperature of Iran shows a positive trend during the last half century by a factor of about 2.2 degree Celsius per century. The Increasing trend of maximum temperature of Iran is about 1.4 degree Celsius per century. Meanwhile, the magnitude of increasing trend for minimum temperature of the country is about 3.0 degree Celsius per century.

Historical region of cities are a valuable heritage and are unique in identifying urban life, hence the determining role of urban planning and manag ement of historical regions of cities becomes evident. In this paper, aside from the introduction and identification of urban management problems of the historical region of Yazd City, we have presented a strategic program to restoring it as well.

Flood causes much damage to economic sources in different part of the countries every year. The occurrence and resulting damage from flood have had an ascending process in current years, while much attention has notbeen given to them sofar. In this article, we have tried to investigate the geomorphic specifications that affect submergibility while comparing these variables on Fashand and Behjatabad Basins In order to investing ate and specify the submergible are as of the two basins, geographic in formation systems software such as Arcview and Arcinfo were used to indicate and score effective parameters (vegetation, inclination, soiltype, petrologyetc.). The parameters are then entered in to the system via in formation models, and the mentioned layers are composed and analysed. Finally, risk area maps of submergibility of the two different basins are prepared to compare the flooding of the two basins abalytically using different geomor phological variables. By investigating their natural positions and risk areas of submergibility, propitious grounds for the occurrence of floods are revealed. Results also show that Fashand is an aquiferous basin and young in a geomor phological point of view. The aquiferous basin of Behgat a bad is also nearly compieted. Furthermore, Fashand is a circular basin, and the more circular a basin is, the more submergible it will be. On the other hand, stretched basins suchas Behyatabad will decreace the amount of discharge with their equal branches, while circular basins with fewer branches will decrease the focus period.

The Caspian Sea Water Level Fluctuation (CSWLF) has an important role in reclaiming land from the sea as wall as flooding in the coastal zone. At present, laws relating to the Caspian coastal zone are not efficient for the Iranian coast, since the CSWLE has risen about 2.4m the past 18 years and flooded about 778 km2 of Iranian coastal zone. Results of studies from Caspian water level indicate the maximum range of the historical period of oscillation at 13.6m and the maximum range of the observation period at 4.42m; hence the maximum surge storm with a return period of 100 years is about 1.47m.  Therefore a strategy for stable development in the coastal zone is necessary. We suggest that the coastal zone should be divided in to 4 bounds. From the nearest to the sea respectively would be designated hazard bounds, next the emergency bounds, then the semi-secure bounds, and finally the secure bounds in the coastal management   program agende.

Lut Desert is the driest desert of Iran located in the southeastern Part of the country. The most interesting existing features of Central Lut are «Yadangs». In this research, Landsat TM data were used to study the spectral signatures of Yardang region and to identify the facets of Lut Desert. Index Factor and Optimum Index Factor were also used to study statistical parameters. The spectral seperability of information classes was also determined using normalized differences of means of classes; then the classified images were assessed by the obtained error matrix. Finally, the best band combinations was introduced by the obtained results. We concluded remotely sensed data are useful in detection of Lut Desert features by applying a suitable methodology.

The amounts of consumptive water requirements (ETC) for premature and serotinous varieties of rice were calculated at ten stations in the Mazandaran Plain, based upon evapotranspiration amounts (ETO) and plant growth coefficients (KC). Then the effective rainfall amounts (ER) and the groundwater amounts, absorbed by plants’ roots (GWC), were calculated according to the most suitable methods. The net irrigation requirement (IR) is defined as the subtraction of ER and GW amounts from ETC amounts. The results of the study showed that the ETC and IR amounts are more in the stern part of the plain than the western part; wereas ER amounts are more in the western part. ER has more proportion of ETC in the western part; wereas this proportion is less in the east. ER amounts are much less than IR amounts in the whole region.

Land Suitability Analysis and Evaluation for Physical Development of cities is one of the major concerns of geographers and urban planners. In most cities where physical development has rapid trend, recognition and locating suitable lands for urban development is very necessary. Land Suitability Analysis for spreading cities, is a process that needs a synchronous evaluation of many various variables (or criteria). In this paper, using GIS-Based Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method, Land Suitability for Physical Development in the northwest road of Shiraz based on five criteria (slope, geology, land capability, distance to city & distance to roads) was evaluated and Land Suitability map of mentioned area have been provided. This map shows suitable zones with preference for Physical Development and can be used widely by urban planners and spatial decision-makers.

The Post-war changes of the world include urbnization, environmental pollution in cities and also increase of leisure times that have led to expansion of rural tourism, particulary second home tourism. In subsequent decades the tourism has been introduced as a tool for rural tourism. In this field, specialists have tried by various approches and strategies to highlit the role of tourism in rural development. The aim of this parer is the recognition and analysis of impacts and sequences of tourism and second homes ownership in northern rural areas of Tehran in the environmental, economic and social dimensions. The results of the study indicates That the opportunities of tourism in this area have not been used to provide the leisure needs of Tehran citizens on one hand, and inadequate rennovation of economic and social of rural areas in the other hand is due to lack of planning and weakness in management. Instead, the threats of tourism have prover to be true in this area and have caused undesirable impacts such as the pollution of water resources, degradation of natural landscape, change of agriculture land use, emigration, increase in regession of agriculture activities  and social duality. With regards to these conditions, the planning and effective management of tourism activities is necessary to provide sustainable rural tourism.

With the fast expansion of urban areas and employing densification policy in Iran, urban density analysis has found high attention in urban development debates. But urban population density has many dimensions and varies from one city to another. Thus, employing statistical methods that use existing data of public censuses are very useful for analysis of existing conditions, proposed condition and its classification. In this paper, distribution of population density in the city of Tabriz in recent decades has been studied and analysed with the use of public census data and other official data. Some statistical methods such as linear and non-linear model, correlation coefficient and multi- correlation methods have been used for density analysis.Some findings of this research are: achievement to a model for explain of relation between population growth and expansion of tabriz urban area; a model to explain quantitative distribution of population and to analyse factors that affect urban density. The main goal of this research is to achieve some methods or techniques for surveying, classifying and forecasting urban density.

The organization of passage networks and streets is very important in the development of the cities, since they have direct and indirect effect in the texture of the cities and also in accessibility to different services. During the development of the cities, passage networks need to be extended and developed and to be able to serve the population density of the city, at the same time. District 8 of Tehran city is chosen as an example, to show the problems of the transportation networks and passages in this area. The methodology of this study is based on a survey questionnaire and available data which is analyzed by GIS. The result shows that during the physical development of this area (District8), decision-maker ignored to develop transportation networks at the same time. Finally, this research will conclude with evaluations and assessments focused on transportation and passage network of the mentioned area(district8 in Tehran).

The quantitative and qualitative characteristics of labor are one of the determinants affecting economic development of the community. The community can satisfy its demands through the work and the activities of its labor; these activities are affected by the characteristics of labor. This article studies the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of labor in the rural regions of Isfahan province during the period 1955 - 1995. The important point in the distribution of the employed persons among the sectors is the considerable decrease in share of agriculture sector during the period 1955 - 1995; the share of agriculture sector has decreased from 64.5 percent in 1955 to 32.7 percent in1995. Meanwhile, the shares of industry and services sectors have increased 150 and 300 percent respectively. These figures show that there has not been a proportional trend in the distribution of the employed persons among the sectors.

Socio - economic development planning and urban and rural physical plans must be based on environmental capacity assessment of the natural resource. Sustaining environmental balance, putting into force of physical projects and their economizing play the most important role in rural planning because rural development plans excessively depend on environmental capacities. Ghal-e Chi river basin, a geographical region of Ajabshir county with 40 villages, is the case of the study. The basin includes three different topographic areas and each has various environmental potentials. The paper tries to survey environmental capacities and then categorize these three areas from a physical point of rural development to five levels. The findings show that the region includes suitable potential resources for rural development planning. However, the count and distribution of social and public services in the region was affected less than other services by topographic and geomorphologic characteristics. Also, in some parts of the region, environmental potentials such as water resources, cultivable lands, pastures and natural landscapes are excessively utilized whereas in the other parts many natural resources are abandoned © 2005