The road network is an important element for sustainable forest ecosystem management. On the other hand, efficiency and quality of road design can be improved by considering of environmental and technical principles. Therefore, this study was performed to determine the capability of Arasbaran protected area for road passing and communication routes in order to use in the area management. For this purpose, criteria of the slope, aspect, height, soil texture, lithology, erosion susceptibility, vegetation density, distance to stream, and distance to existing road as the effective criteria for road design were identified by literature review, and their prepared maps were standardized with the fuzzy logic method. Then, the criteria were weighted using of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and finally were combined to prepare suitability map for road planning by weighted linear combination (WLC) method. According to results, the highest weight (0. 289) and the lowest weight (0. 033) were belonged to slope and height criterion, respectively. Finally, the area was classified into four classes with the capability of low, medium, high and very high for road network passing, that region with medium passing capability has the highest percent (49. 83%). The study proved GIS and AHP capabilities considering to economic and environmental problems for developing the road capability map in order to use for road locating in Arasbaran area.

Access routes are the basic requirements to access recreational areas and tourism planning. The purpose of this study is designing and evaluating of forest road network in order to select the optimal road network for tourism development in Arasbaran protected area. For this purpose, recreational suitable areas were evaluated and identified using Makhdoum systemic methods and Multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network. In order to prepare the road passing suitability map, effective criteria for road designing have been standardized with the fuzzy logic method and combined according to the relative importance obtained from the analytical hierarchy process. Then, the road network options were designed for access to recreational areas in the GIS environment and evaluated in terms of technical, environmental and socioeconomic. The results of the tourism suitable area assessment showed sections of the region have a capability for intensive recreation class 2 (0.17%), and extensive recreation class 2 (10.09%).According to the weighting results by criteria, slope criterion with a value 0.289 and height criterion with a value 0.033 have the highest and the lowest weight, respectively.Overall, 14 road network variants were designed and based on the final evaluation, variant 7 was selected as the optimal option with density 3.34 m/ha, accessibility (hard) 64.68% and minimum cost and environmental impacts. Therefore, taking into account the cost and environmental impacts and using GIS capabilities, it is possible principle design of the road network, and as a result the development of existing access roads in order to develop tourism in the area.

Vegetation plays an important role in maintaining the balance of ecosystems and is considered as a significant indicator in assessing the environment of terrestrial ecosystems. The coverage of vegetation is considered as one of the important characteristics for the assessment of vegetation. Vegetation changes cause disorder in the ecosystem and act as a stimulus to change the composition of species and habitat conditions. The present research was conducted with the aim of modeling the effect of human activities on the coverage of vegetation with the help of artificial neural network and determining the most effective ecological and human variables on the coverage in the central Alborz protected area under the management of Alborz province. For this purpose, after the characterizing homogeneous ecological units, 101 plant square plots with dimensions of 2 x 2 meters and 101 soil samples were collected in these units. Modeling was done using multi-layer perceptron method, the input data included soil physical and chemical variables, physiographic variables (based on management plan maps) and variables related to human factors (based on the Euclidean distance map of sampling points). According to the values ​​of the coefficient of determination in the three categories of training, validation and test data equal to 0.86, 0.79 and 0.81, the optimal structure of the model for the coverage of vegetation with a structure of 1-19-18 (18 input variables, 19 neurons in the hidden layer and one output variable) was selected. Based on the results of sensitivity analysis, slope variables, percentage of organic matter and height, the most effective variables on the abundance of vegetation in the study area were identified. The model presented in this research is used as a decision support system in assessing the effects of human activities on the coverage of vegetation in protected areas and provides the possibility of predicting the extent of these effects on the coverage of vegetation in protected areas.

Vegetation plays an important role in maintaining the balance of ecosystems and is considered as a significant indicator in assessing the environment of terrestrial ecosystems. The coverage of vegetation is considered as one of the important characteristics for the assessment of vegetation. Vegetation changes cause disorder in the ecosystem and act as a stimulus to change the composition of species and habitat conditions. The present research was conducted with the aim of modeling the effect of human activities on the coverage of vegetation with the help of artificial neural network and determining the most effective ecological and human variables on the coverage in the central Alborz protected area under the management of Alborz province. For this purpose, after the characterizing homogeneous ecological units, 101 plant square plots with dimensions of 2 x 2 meters and 101 soil samples were collected in these units. Modeling was done using multi-layer perceptron method, the input data included soil physical and chemical variables, physiographic variables (based on management plan maps) and variables related to human factors (based on the Euclidean distance map of sampling points). According to the values ​​of the coefficient of determination in the three categories of training, validation and test data equal to 0.86, 0.79 and 0.81, the optimal structure of the model for the coverage of vegetation with a structure of 1-19-18 (18 input variables, 19 neurons in the hidden layer and one output variable) was selected. Based on the results of sensitivity analysis, slope variables, percentage of organic matter and height, the most effective variables on the abundance of vegetation in the study area were identified. The model presented in this research is used as a decision support system in assessing the effects of human activities on the coverage of vegetation in protected areas and provides the possibility of predicting the extent of these effects on the coverage of vegetation in protected areas.

The aim of this study was to recognize plant communities of Box tree (Buxus hyrcana Pojark.) stands in the Khybus protected area, located in the middle part of Hyrcanian forests (north of Iran). Vegetation releves, 64 numbers, were made at peak vegetation cover during last summer by systematic-selective method in 200 and 400 meter grid dimensions by consideration indicator stands concept. By using Braun-Blanquet tabular method, six distinct plant communities including three associations: Rusco hyrcani-Fagetum orientalis, Buxus Hyrcani-Fagetum orientalis and Tilia sp.-Buxetum hyrcana with three subasociations: Rusco hyrcani- Fagetum orientalis Lauroceraetosum officinalis, Buxus Hyrcani-Fagetum orientalis parrotioetosum persica and Buxus Hyrcani-Fagetum orientalis aceretosum velutinum were determined. By using two way indicator species analysis, TWINSPAN, six plant communities were recognized. Braun-Blanquet tabular method and TWINSPAN fitness were estimated as 98.4% based on similar membership of relves in each plant community. Moreover, plant communities based on two first DCA axes, which represent 33% of total variances in whole of floristic data, revealed that each plant community had its own range and rather clear bordeline. Totally, results of this study not only describe plant communities of Khybus protected area as a climax model of Hyrcanian mountainous forests for the first time but also confirm that subjective Braun-Blanquet method, despite the development of numerical methods in multivariate classification of vegetation, can be used as an efficient method of separation and classification of forest sites.

Bisotun Protected area, a mountainous region, covers an area of 82100 hectares that includes an area of 31250 hectare wildlife refuge and protected area with an area of 50850 hectares.The Area is located in the Zagros Mountains, Mid-Western side of Iran, Kermanshah province. This area due to range of altitude, physiographic factors, micro-climates and different soil types has several ecological small niches that are occupied by different plants. A total of 375 taxa, including 50 families and 220 genera have been identified from the area. Of these two families include two genera and three species belonging to Pteridophytes, 48 families (43 dicotyledones and five monocotyledones) belong to flowering plants. The most important plant families were Asteraceae, Poaceae, Papilionaceae, Apiaceae, Brassicaceae, Caryophyllaceae and Lamiaceae respectively. The genusAstragalus constitutes the largest genus in the area. Therophytes had the highest frequency and follow them, Hemicryptophytes, Geophytes, Chamaephytes and Phanerophytes respectively. The elements of Irano-Turanian region constitute more than 63% of plants that represent area belongs to this phytogeographical region as well as the sector of Kurdo-Zagrosian. After the plants of Irano -Turanian region, bi and plurregional plant elements have the most frequencies. Endemic species make up 9.33% of the region's flora. The discovery of new speciesAstragalus ciceropsis, A. montis-parrowii and Onosma bisotunensis and new recorded Crucianella macrostachyafrom the protected area in recent years shows a previously unknown flora and its plant richness.

The Geno protected area is located in Hormozgan province, 30 km North west of BandarAbbas between latitudes (27o18'50"-27o29'16" N) and longitudes(55° 57'30"-56o18'4"E), at about 50 to 2347m above sea level. It covers an area of about 43000 hectares. In order to introuduce the plant associations of Genu protected area, 135 releves in different association individuals were recorded using the braun–blanquet school. Phytosociological data were analysed by AFC and CAH methods, Using the computer program of Anaphyto. 20 associations and one subassociation were distinguished. The most species reachness was observed in Acer monspessulani- Juniperetum excelsae and Ebeno stellatae- Amygdaletum scopariae associations. Meanwhile the native flora in sandy soils of low lands and plains seems to be threathened by the exotic species, Prosopis juliflora.

Forecasting changes in the environment has now become one of the important branches of environmental studies. One of these predictions is to investigate the possible effects of temperature changes on plant and animal species. In this research, the aim is used the land surface temperature (LST) of the MODIS satellite, separately for spring, summer, autumn and winter seasons, to investigate the changes in the average LST in the protected areas and the habitat of focal species. Focal species of the province include Panthra pardus, Acinonyx jubatus, Capra aegagrus, Ovis orientalis, Gazella subgutturosa and Gazella bennettii. In a field study, the presence points were collected between 1399 and 1402 from all over the province and protected areas, and the seasonal average of LST from 2003 to 2033 was prepared using MODIS satellite products (MYD11A1) in the Google Earth Engine system. Species habitat was modeled by using SDMs and combining regression models and machine learning. Also, the TSS threshold was used to convert the habitat desirability probability map into a binary map. Man-Kendall (MK) trend analysis test was used to analyze the trend of increasing and decreasing temperature changes at a significance level of 95%. The findings show that the decreasing changes in the earth's surface temperature have occurred in a scattered and non-continuous manner on the surface, but the increasing temperature changes are associated with more spatial continuity. The highest decrease in temperature occurred in the spring season with 15,212.69 hectares in the Iranian deer habitat, while there was no decrease in temperature in the winter season. Protected areas have experienced the least increasing and decreasing LST trends in spring.