Abstract

Nowadays, population growth and on the other hand resources limitations astonish authorities. Population changes cause variation in economic activities and land use changes. As a whole, overusing, improper land use and human disturbances over natural resources make environmental imbalances worse. In recent decades, we have seen land use changes in Taleghan basin. Land use changes were produced by many factors, e.g. in abandoned lands, some parts of the region have been converted to residential areas and constructions. Since one century before, because of vicinity to population centers like Tehran and upland condition, this region has been a suitable place for recreation of travelers. Also one of the most important factors has been changed in population which has occurred in Taleghan. So that the statistical information shows substantial decrease in villages population in Taleghan. Similar to the, other regions in Iran, landuse changes especially in rangelands, is an important subject in Taleghan too. This paper tries to illustrate the relationship between population and land use changes in the given region of study and to detect the land use changes in a 15-year period. For determining the landuse, we used geographic information system and statistical methods, remote sensing also landSat images for 1987 and 2001 together. Population size were gained and analyzed for computing the population growth rate. According to what we concluded, in abandoned lands in given region of study the growth rate was positive and in other word, it increased and for other land uses this rate was negative together with negative increasing in all villages, therefore the population decreased. The villages of this region according to their magnitude of reduction in population growth and abandoned lands are: Gateh deh, Narian, Noviz oliya, Dizan, Jovestan, garab, Orazan, Nesa Bala, Mehran, Khachireh, Drapy. Thus, great number of settlers during these years migrated and the population decreased and following this trend, great area of rangelands (37.88%) which has already converted to rain-fed lands, has emerged in the form of abandoned lands in this region. In Gateh deh village, the area of rangelands had the maximum reduction and on the contrary, abandoned lands had the maximum amount of growth. Finally, it could be inferred that, there is a logical relationship between population growth and the area of abandoned lands.