Journal of Range and Watershed Managment

Environmental capability evaluation of land to develop range management plan (Case study: parcel A of Gheshlagh dam watershed)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Fazlolah Ahmadi Mirghaed 1
Babak Souri 2
Mahtab Pir Bavaghar 3

1 Environment Graduate Student, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Kurdistan, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Kurdistan, Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Department of Forestry, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Kurdistan, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22059/jrwm.2013.36510
Abstract
Rangelands are among the natural resources which have a considerable effect on environment and man’s life. Iranian rangelands mostly have poor condition and exhausted by intensive over grazing, should be utilized according to their ecological capability and land suitability. The main objective of this study is to evaluate ecological capability and land suitability of Gheshlagh dam’s watershed area-parcel A (In Kurdistan province, western Iran) to develop range management plan. Following data collection; determination of the important parameters for evaluation of rangelands environmental capability in the study area was carried out and then obtained parameters were given values based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Finally, the obtained values were applied to the important parameters for evaluation of rangelands environmental capability according to technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). The results approved that suitability of a land is classifiable for various types of land uses using MCDM methods. Also according to the results specified that the physical criteria of land have more effective than other parameters to develop range management plan. Moreover, land evaluation of study area showed that eastern parts of the watershed had higher suitability to develop range management plan.

Keywords

AHP
environmental capability evaluation
Range management
spatial multi criteria decision making
TOPSIS
Journal of Range and Watershed Managment
Volume 66, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
Autumn 2013
Pages 321-334

  • Receive Date 13 July 2011
  • Revise Date 15 November 2013
  • Accept Date 31 January 2012
  • Publish Date 23 October 2013

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