GEOGRAPHIC SPACE
Year:2015 | Volume:14 | Issue:48|Papers Count:13

Kermanshah Province is rich in karst water resources due to its geologic, geomorphologic and climatic features. The response of karst springs to drought is varied because of different characteristics of folded and fractured karst zones. The aim of this research is the recognition of discharge fluctuations and behavior of karst springs in folded and fractured Zagros zones when drought happens. Therefore, the year 1386-87 has been chosen as the year of severe drought by using SPI index. Then by analyzing the hydrograph and hyetograph, calculation of discharge coefficient variation, variation range alpha coefficient the type of the spring systems have been determined.Eventually, the way that springs have been affected by drought has been investigated. The results of study show that the springs of fractured Zagros belong to conduit type and springs of folded Zagros belong to diffuse type.The impact of the drought on all the springs has been occurred without any delay and nearly at the same time. Springs of fractured Zagros zone have a response to maximum rainfall with a three-month delay and then these springs have been dried near to complete. The only impact of severe drought on folded Zagros springs is limited to discharge decrease and no time can be exactly determined for folded Zagros springs reactions to the drought.Finally, folded Zagros springs have been affected by the drought less than the fractured ones and these springs have greater potential for water resources sustainablity using and management.

Variability of temperature is very important as one of the symbols of climatic change. In this research, variability of temperature in north of Ardebil Province has been investigated by using monthly and annual mean temperature in Pars-Abad synoptic station from Jan 1984 to Dec 2009 and order 2 moving average, autoregressive and ARIMA models. Linear and order 6 polynomial trends in Pars-Abad synoptic station showed that annual temperature in this station has an increasing trend. Order 6 polynomial model was better than linear regression model in detection of annual temperature variability of Pars-Abad synoptic station. Result of modeling and analysis of monthly temperature in the under study by linear regression, moving average and ARIMA models and forecasts until 2014 showed that ARIMA model has the lowest MAPE and highest R2 and the estimates of mean temperature of this station was better than other models. In selection of the best pattern, indices and rate of AIC, RSME and MAD showed that SARIMA (0, 0, 1) (0, 1, 1)12 model with lowest RSME, AIC and MAD is a suitable model to monthly temperature forecasts in under study station.

One of the important and effective means in the upgrade of quality of the human environment is the sense of place. The sense that is regarded as the formation foundation of communication of users and the environment, which finally leads to the creation of quality environments. The research has been carried out with 379 samples, and the aim was the evaluation of sense of belonging to place of Hashtgerd new town inhabitans. The research method was descriptive–analytical. The data obtained through the questionnaires have been described and analyzed by using SPSS software and applying statistical methods including frequency distribution, ANOVA test, Spearman correlation coefficient and Pearson, and regression analysis. The test results showed that there was a significant relationship between four variables of the period of residence, residents security feeling in place, access to urban services and social and public activity with the sense of attachment to place. therefore increasing the period of residence, urban services, feeling of security, social and public activity and the increasing sense of attachment to place of the residents of Hashtgerd new towns. Also the results of the regression analysis showed that approximately 29% of the changes in the dependent variable (residents' sense of place) the independent variables (duration of stay, urban services, place security, social and public activity).

In this study, to investigate situation of soil erosion and sediment yield in the Sorkh Abad watershed of Mazandaran province, first measured the specific sediment observed by aspects of sediment accumulated behind two of stone and mortar dam in the output of the mentioned watershed was considered then using models FSM, PSIAC and EPM performance of each of these models to estimate the amount of erosion and sediment yield was evaluated. According obtained results of the observed and measured sediment rate behind dams in the study area was 390.997 ton per square kilometer per year, which were obtained for FSM (equation 10), PSIAC and EPM models 611.411, 239.157 and 280.436 ton per square kilometer per year respectively. Also, the relative error percentage calculated for the above models, respectively 22, 36 and 50 percent. According to the results, the EPM model with relative error percentage less than other models used was better performance to estimate of erosion and sediment yield in the Sorkh Abad watershed.

Climatic unfavorable conditions lead to limitation of activity. Therefore, application of climatic severity coefficient can lead to befitting distribution of economic potentialities. The climatic stress index is suitable scale for ranking of residential sites due to climatic severity coefficient. In this research by dint of ArcGIS 9.1 software, climatic data were analyzed and numeric maps of climatic stress index in cold and warm seasons were produced by Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpolation method. Thereafter, quantity of these indices were extracted from the map on the basis of cites geographical location. Then cites of this Province have been ranked from 1 to 25 in cold and warm seasons out of consideration of index. Results of this research show that the climatic stress index can be used to give climatic hardness coefficient in any location. Investigation of mean of stress index in 25 sites of this Province show that, not only the number of cold months is more than those of warm month, but also hardness of cool in seven months of cold season is more severe of that in five months of warm season. Studying of monthly mean of climatic stress index shows that, Boldaji, Nafch and Chelgerd sites in cold season and Malkhalife and Lordegan sites in warm season have more hardness of climatic conditions.

In this research, after land use and slope mapping, the ecological capability of dry farming lands in Zilbar-chay watershed were evaluated to convert pasture using GIS in West-East Azerbaijan. Slope map was derived from DEM model and present land use map was derived using existing information, Landsat images, aerial photos and fieldworks. Then, land use and slope map were compared to discriminate the dry farming lands, which were distributed on more than 12% of slopes for converting to pasture. Results show that the discrimination between dry farming lands from rangelands according to the scale of the study and the size of cultivated lands was faced with problem, thus some parts of the rangeland and dry farming lands were mapped as complex units. Accuracy of the produced map was 77% and Kappa coefficient was 0.77. Total dry farming lands on watershed were estimated about 9,364 ha. Some 5,555 ha of dry farming lands has distributed on the area with the higher than 12% slopes, covering 2,352 ha of areas with 20 to 30% and 3,203 ha on the areas with 12 to 20% slope. From the ecological capability perspective these lands should be converted to other land uses such as pasture. By continuing current dry farming land practices on the areas with higher slopes and dry farming technical issues, particularly up and down tillage, would cause increase in the severity of degradation and in turn the loss of soil and water in a long period. While, if these areas convert to permanent vegetation cover (pasture), not only the amount of yield will be increased some 11,110 tons of forage per year and in comparison with wheat, the amount of yield will be increased about 2.4 times, but it also will improve the erosion control and soil and water conservation.

Today it is necessary to evaluate and analyze the natural structure and human factors for any landuse in order to develop a region in an optimal way. Mehr housing plan was approved and enacted in all cities of Iran in the six past years for meeting housing needs of the class without any possession of housing. Generally, most of the Mehr housing complexes have been localized outside the cities because of inexpensiveness of the land price in these area. So, natural and environmental issues and limitations have not been considered in the locating of these complexes. In this research, the lands of Tabriz, Marand and Hadishar in West Azerbaijan have been zonned based on the diverse natural criteria in order to evaluate Mehr housing complexes location and proper locating from natural environment perspective in order to aid sustainable development regarding natural elements by using of AHP and applying nine environmental criteria. It should be pointed out that the best identified zones of upper than 50 ha were graded and evaluated based on five important natural and human factors and the optimal locations were identified for this plan by using TOPSIS model.The results show that there are seven appropriate zones in Tabriz and five proper zones in Marand and Hadishar for construction of Mehr housing complexes regarding the studied indices. The identified zones were assessed by analysis of sensitiveness model. The results indicate that none of the constructed complexes in the mentioned cities are in optimal environmental conditions and they are inconsistent to the specified optimal locations.

Understanding the physical characteristics of any particular regional climate features can play major role in land use planning. Climatic zoning of each region to identify possible environment and to exploit them, and to know the limitations and hazards in order to anticipate, is essential. According to the environmental and religious diversity, of climate on the northern and north-west of Iran, in this study the climatic zoning of the area was carried out. For this purpose, the data from annual average of 18 elements in 34 synoptic stations in the climate region with a common 21-year period (1985-2005) were used. The methods of factor and cluster analyses were used for this study. The factor analysis with principal components method, 18 elements in 5 regional climatic factors were summarized. These factors, in order of importance the factors humidity-precipitation, temperature, wind, thunder and dust. A total of 93.35% of these factors explain the behavior of the local climate. After determining factor, using cluster analysis method based on the integration, and the measure of distance, as well as regional stations were grouped according to the operating characteristics. The station had parallels in a climate group and thus 10 different climatic areas in the North and North-west of Iran were identified.

In this article, transformation of urban historic core was attended according to spatial parameters. Main question of this research was how physical changes can effect on spatial structure of a Sabzevar city? Physical- spatial structure is one of the parameters that can be considered as an indicator in urban transformation. This article aims to describe physical-spatial structure transformation of Sabzevar city from 1907 to 2007. Methodology of this article is quantitative-comparative and is based on the space syntax theory and spatial measurements such as integration value, mean depth, control and connectivity in each period. in 1907, analysis indicated that, in historic core, parameters as mean integration was 0.4946, while mean depth was 18.6059, the connectivity 2.1661 and control was 0.9983. According to these, Sabzevar city is consistent with the hierarchy and solidarity structure and bazaar is the most integrated city space (0.7433). In this period bazaar had a major role in the development and transformation of the city. But at the present time, destroyed bazaar and construction of various streets in addition to the physical separation in space and the whole city has created historical context with caused isolation of historic core. Analysis indicates that parameters such as mean integration were 0.8715, mean depth was 12.5638, the connectivity being 2.3759 and control to be 1.0239. The highest integrated space is Beihagh street with integration value of (1.216).

During recent decades, because of the importance of the rainfall-runoff process, developing suitable models to estimate the runoff from the rainfall data has become an important issue. Rainfall is considered as one of the most important input data in hydraulic systems, which is considered to have two types: spot and regional. In order to model the rainfall-runoff process, intelligent models, which do the mapping task using the input and output data and have accurate results, are used. In this study, in order to estimate the output runoff from the Balkhlouchay basin located on the west of Ardebil Province, the amounts of previous rainfalls and discharges till three days earlier are used, and the rainfall also is considered in two types of regional and spot which is related to 6 rain-measurement stations. In order to estimate the rainfall-runoff in the Balkhlouchay basin, intelligent models, artificial neural network (ANN), genetic programming (GP) and adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) are used. and The results were compared using evaluation criterion. The amount of the coefficient of determination, root mean squared error and the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient for ther egional rainfall test data are 0.854, 0.573, 0.935 respectively. In the most accurate model for the spot rainfall in the test data the mentioned values are 0.852, 0.578, 0.932. The results of this study show that the regional rainfalls have better results compared to the spot rainfall.

Drainage systems as parts of geomorphological landforms are sensitive to tectonic activities. The purpose of this research is to study the anomaly of drainage system and its relevance to neotectonic in Sadkharv, Kalateh-Sadat (in southern slopes of Joghatai mountains), Farub-Ruman (in southern slope of Binaloud mountains) and Gelian (in northern slopes of Aladagh mountains) catchments. The hierarchical anomaly index (Da), density of hierarchical anomaly (ga), bifurcation index (R), percent of basin asymmetry (PAF), basin shape (Bs) and the mean length of first order streams (LN1) parameters were calculated. Then linear relations and correlation coefficient (R) between parameters were obtained. Data show that there is positive relation with strong correlation coefficient (r=0.963) between Da and ga parameters. There are also positive relations between Da and PAF, Da and BS, Da and LN1, ga and PAF, ga and BS, ga and LN1 parameters. Correlation coefficients for Da-PAF, Da-Bs and Da –LN1 pairs are respectively 0.796, 0.737 and 0.892 and between ga-PAF, ga-Bs and ga-LN1 pairs are respectively 0.920, 0.875 and 0.896. There is no meaningful correlation between R and other parameters. Evaluation of correlation between parameters reveals that Da and ga indexes have more efficiency in identification of active tectonic of catchments than other parameters. Although all studied basins are tectonically active based on above-mentioned indexes, the highest rate of tectonic activity is associated with Farub-Ruman, Sadkharv and Gelian catchments and the lowest rate is related to Kalateh-Sadat catchment.

The present study aimed to investigate the capabilities of Aras free zone, sports tourism and provide effective solutions to its development. Study is descriptive-analytical based on field work. 70 teachers, administrators, sport and tourism experts in Aras Free Zone were selected as the sample from and 56 people answered questions.Measurement tool was a Likert scale researcher made questionnaire with 60 questions in which four factors of, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats were studied.Validity was approved by several Professors in the field of tourism and sports tourism and the reliability of the questionnaire was obtained using Cronbach's alpha (a=0.78). For data analysis, inferential statistics including one variable t-test to compare the means was used and Friedman test was used to rank the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats In addition in developing strategies SOWT was used. The results of the research indicate that from the perspective of the participants, beaches of the Aras River are the most important strength and a lack of public awareness of the benefits of sport and tourism in the region, is the most important disadvantage. Also Development of the shores of the Aras River was one of the most important strategies of sport tourism development and a lack of sponsors in the holding of sports events in the region was the main threat in the field of sports tourism. The results suggest that sports tourism in Aras free zone from the perspective of strategic position in the internal and external matrix is conservative.

Blocking event can lead to economic losses at the macro level and be effective on health on a large scale. Blocking is one of the Mid-latitude systems and Iran due to the situation is affected by this phenomenon. In order to investigate the blocking systems affecting the climate of Iran, daily geopotential heights of 500 hPa of grid points within the 0-90N and 90W-100E windows were extracted from the NCEP reanalysis data for the 1953-2012 period at 2.5 degrees resolution. By using the two dimensional index, the blocking systems were defined within these geopotential data. The whole process was programmed and modeled in the MATLAB environment. In the second step the characteristics of blocking systems such as central location, intensity, spatial structure, and duration were extracted.The results showed that the most frequent occurring place for these systems is the area between 10W to 20E; while Iran was the second center for these events. The developing location of the most blockings affecting the climate of Iran is the Scandinavian Peninsula. The medium blockings were frequent and the mean duration of these systems was 6 days. The application of the non-parametric Mann-Kendal test revealed no significant trend of the frequencies of blocking systems over the study period.