نشریه محیط زیست طبیعی
سال شصت و نهم شماره 1 (بهار 1395)

Landscape characteristics and land use patterns of watershed demonstrate extension, distribution, density and abundance of human interference. These factors can affect water quality of adjacent aquatic systems within a watershed. Land use changes have caused various environmental problems for Zayandehroud River,turned it as a sink of pollutant. Therefore this is investigated that how would Landscape characteristics and land use patterns change water quality and affect ecosystem management. The main goal of this study was to examine how landscape patterns (including Number of Patches, Edge Density, Percentage of landscape, Total Edge and Largest Patch Index) influence water quality. Indexes (including EC, HCO3, NO3, Cl, K, Ca, COD, Na, DO, P, pH, BOD5 and TDS) were measured in 10 stations along the Zayandehroud river.This is one of the most important rivers of the central plateau of Iran.In this study, Four classes of land use including Cropland, Orchard, Residential and industrial area were identified in a period of eleven years (1997–2008). The results indicated that water quality was significantly correlated with both proportions and configuration of Residential areas. Total edge of Industrial area had negative effects on water quality, especially on TDS and COD. Results of this study can be used not only for resource managers in order to restore the aquatic ecosystems but also for policy makers in evaluating alternate land management decisions.

The fire as one of the ecological factor has positive or negative effects on ecosystems components. Therefore, this study was evaluated the effect of fire on some soil physico-chemical properties in winter rangelands of Behshahr. So that two burned sites were selected in rangelands and changed rangelands to wheat and barley with two control areas (unburned) in each of them. The soil sampling was done by three transects (100m) with ten sample points in random-systematic method (total 30 samples in each area). Soil samples were taken in 0-15cm depth. The soil physico-chemical properties such as bulk density, moisture, texture, potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, calcium carbonate, organic carbon, acidity and electrical conductivity were measured in lab. Finally, the data was analyzed by paired t-Test in SPSS19 Software. The results showed that the fire in rangelands had significant effect on moisture (P≤ 0.01) and organic carbon (P≤ 0.05) reduction but P (P≤ 0.01), K, EC and pH (P≤ 0.05) have been increased. While K had significant increase (P≤ 0.05) and moisture had reduction (P≤ 0.01) in changed rangelands. Generally the results showed that soil chemical characteristics in natural ecosystems had clear and more specific reaction against the fire in comparison to changed rangelands. Also according to the results, it is necessary to manage intensity and time of fire to control the fire next effects.

Due to environmental problems caused by mining activities, it is necessary to study and investigation the concentrations of the pollutants caused by this activities such as heavy metals. The aim of this study is the determination of the concentration of heavy metals Cu, Pb and Zn in roots of two species of Artemisia including Artemisia aucheri and Artemisia sieberi in the surrounding natural lands of Darreh Zereshk copper mine and regardless the role of other mines in the area. Therefore, the study area based on factors such as wind direction and distance from mine was divided into 10 regions and using random sampling method, 10 samples of artemisia and three samples of surfac soil were taken from each area. then the metal concentrations were measured using ICP-OES, after acid digestion. Based on the result obtained, mean concentrations of Cu, Pb and Zn in artemisia root was respectively 9.20, 1.65 and 22.30 and significant differences (p

Ozone concentration in metropolitan areas frequently exceed regulatory standards now. Since it is harmful on human health and environment, its modeling and visualization are of vital important. Modeling and prediction of ozone is required by urban managers to control and prevent its effects. In this paper, important parameters influencing the hourly ozone concentration are estimated by using data collected in Azadi and Imam Khomeini air quality stations in 2009-2010. In this context, the correlations between ozone concentration and meteorological parameters such as relative humidity, temperature, pressure, wind speed, and its directions are determined by linear regression and principle component analysis.
Results showed that ozone concentration is mostly affected by relative humidity, temperature and wind speed. The effects of relative humidity and temperature on ozone concentration are attributed to photochemical processes. While the correlation between the ozone and wind speed is due to the ozone transfer from nearby regions. After determining the important parameters, a neural network was used for forecasting of ozone concentration of the next 24 hours for a week in four different seasons. The input to the neural network model was relative humidity, temperature and wind speed. Results of the implementation showed that the model can predict the ozone concentration in Azadi and Imam Khomeini air quality stations by an accuracy of 67 to 97 percent for the next 24 hours. Urban managers for more efficient management and control of the ozone concentration can use results of this research work.

Gabrik in the East of Hormozgan province is Mangrove habitat and one of the important Mangrove protected area. This area is located in Oman coasts. This zone because of building Jagin dam on Gabrick River and existence of sand barrier and exposure of pollution, it is possible to destroy or to be important threats of this planet. Base on importance of this sea inhabitation some of sedimentology parameters and geochemical Mangrove's sediments have been analyzed. In this study for sieve used Hydrometric method and for Identification of organic matter used electronic furnace heat 500 degree centigrade for 6 hours. Quantity of calcium carbonate analyzed by titration and for condenses of heavy metal Zn, Pb and Ni chemical decomposition atomic absorption by Thermo-solaar (±1µg/g). Results showed that mean content of carbonate and organic matter in the sediments is 27%and 3.36% respectively. Contamination heavy metals Pb, Zn and Ni in the sediments of this mangrove, were studied throughout Gabrik creek. Metal concentration analyses were performed using atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). Mean concentration of the heavy metals Pb, Zn and Ni in sediments was measured 67.63, 69.63 and 76.53 µg/g dry weights respectively. According to determine geoaccumulation index (Igeo), contamination factor (CF), the degree of contamination correction (mCd) and compared the heavy metal concentrations with to the mean concentrations of heavy metals in sedimentary rock (shales) and China and American standards. The results in this study showed that there is no pollution from Zn metal but there are pollutions from Ni and Pb metals and concentration this heavy metals arent critical. The origin of these heavy metals can be a result of maintenance of fishing vessels in Gabrik Creek, activities or fuel smuggling and perhaps oil compounds spill into the water and human refuse in the region.

With the aim to examine lead tolerance of Populus nigra (clone 62/154) in symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, a greenhouse experiment was carried out in a factorial randomized complete scheme with two factors 1) fungal inoculation in 4 levels (control, inoculation with Glomus mosseae, inoculation with G. intraradices and inoculation with G. mosseae G. intraradices) and 2) lead in 4 levels (0, 100, 500 and 1000 mg kg-1 soil). Mycorrhizal colonization and physiological parameters of plants were measured at the end of growth season. Results showed that at all Pb levels, the percentage of root mycorrhizal colonization in fungal treatments was significantly higher than that in control treatment (without fungal inoculation), however without significant differences between 3 fungal treatments. Pb treatments had no significant effect on root mycorrhizal colonization of P. nigra plants. Also, photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, transpiration, intercellular CO2 concentration and water use efficiency of P. nigra plants had no significant inhibitory effects versus the control found under Pb and fungal treatments or their interaction. The results of present study demonstrated that fungal treatments had no significant effects on physiological parameters and Pb tolerance of P. nigra plants. While, in relation to mycorrhizal colonization and physiological parameters, P. nigra clone 62/154 showed a good tolerance to Pb stress. So, in further investigations of phytoremediation of lead-contaminated soils, this clone can be considered as a proposed species.

The Petrochemical industry is the most important and most widely active industries in the country. Due to the variety and complexity of industrial products, it also produces a wild range of pollutants. Mercury waste disposal from Chlor-alkali units is one of the fundamental problems of this industry. Various studies have shown that Phytoremediation system for removal of mercury from aqueous solutions is very efficient and, in some cases up to 95% of mercury has been removed from the solution. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of common reed (Phragmites australis) in the removal of mercury from the Chlor-alkali effluent in Bandar Imam Petrochemical. Plant samples Harvested from Shadegan wetland were cultured hydroponically in plastic aquariums. Effluent samples which were taken from Chlor-alkali plants were added to the culture medium. An aquarium containing wastewater, water and nutrients was considered as control. Mercury concentrations in water and plant at 1, 3, 5 and 7 days were measured by Varian Spectra 220 Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. The results showed that Time has a direct effect on mercury up taking by common reed. The common Reed absorption average was 2657.25 ppm within 7 days, that shows a high capacity of mercury absorption from Chlor-alkali plant effluents. Also In the study period, 96.25% of mercury were removed from common reed aquarium effulgent water.

The fluoride level in N.W. of West Azarbayedjan in the 6000 Km2area of Bazargan –Poldashat axe, is dangerously high and far above standard. Although,

This study aimed to evaluate the environmental consequences of kiwifruit production in Guilan province of Iran by the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology during growing season of 2011-2012. Data were obtained from 84 kiwifruit producers using a face to face questionnaire method. For this purpose, a functional unit equal to one ton kiwifruit was assumed based on ISO 14040 method. Impacts of emissions in seven impact categories; such as global warming, acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, land use, depletion of fossil resources, the depletion of potash and the depletion of phosphate were investigated. Data analysis suggested that the amount of emission including NH3, N2O, NOx, CO2, CH4 and SO2 for one ton production of kiwifruit were calculated as 1.99, 0.30, 0.24, 25.75, 0.002 and 0.04, respectively. Final index of global warming, acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, land use, depletion of fossil resources, the depletion of phosphate and the depletion of potash were obtained 0.01, 0.12, 0.20, 0.01, 0.66, 0.40 and 0.03 kg, respectively. Environmental index (EcoX) and resource depletion index (RDI) Indicators were obtained 0.34 and 1.10, respectively. The highest potential for environmental impact of production was estimated for depletion of fossil resources and eutrophication category in RDI and EcoX indicators, respectively. Replacing source of nitrogen from urea fertilizer with the nitrogen fertilizer with less pollution potential can be considered as a strategy to reduce the environmental consequences of kiwifruit production in Guilan province.

Climatological parameters are among the most important ecological capability evaluation criterias, on other hand, climate changes which has intensified in the past decades and has the consequences such as; increases in climatic threshold phenomena like occurrence of horrific floodings, destructive hurricanes, abnormal and sudden colds and heats, untimely rainfalls and heavy snows, widespread droughts and etc., has shown the necessity of studding the impacts of climate change on various parts of economy and social more than before. But due to low spatial and temporal resolution of global climate models, regional experts must increase the resolution of this model's data using downscaling methods. This study has evaluated the power and precision of LARS-WG model in climatic data generating and future climate forecasting for Guilan province of Iran. Accordingly the daily data collected from synoptic stations in Guilan, with a minimum of 15 years of daily data, between 1995 to 2009 has been used. The parameters used included; rainfall, minimum temperature, maximum temperature and solar radiation. The results show that, the highest calculated value of Mean Absolute Error (MAE) for rainfall modeled data was 14.48 in Astara station, and the highest bias calculated value for rainfall parameter was -4.35 and in Astara station too. The model precision for modeling the minimum and maximum temperature was desired for modeling this parameters, and the highest MAE and bias values for minimum temperature were 0.17 and 0.065 in sequence and both in Anzali station. Also, the highest MAE and bias calculated values of maximum temperature were 0.26 and 0.23 in sequence and both in Rasht station. And in LARS-WG precision in modeling the solar radiation parameter, the Rasht station had the highest calculated MAE and bias values, with the amount of 0.31 and 0.08 in sequence. Results analysis show that the LARS-WG model, has the proper power and precision for climate modeling and data generating in Guilan province of Iran.

Natural fire inflicting irreparable damage to rangelands and forest areas is cause changes in landscape ecology. The purpose of this research is comparison of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Line Regression (LR) Models to predict of forest and rangelands fires to this end, the data consist fire burned area and fire were used weather data over a period of 7 years (2006-2012(.The result indicates that the Artificial Neural Network with implementation 9 and repeats 900 was obtained best performance network. The results of this study indicated the ability of neural networks in predicting the occurrence of fire and as well as the neural network model can to predict 86 percent change in forest and grassland fire using climatic parameters. Also, the results of the Spearman correlation test showed that the maximum temperature (p =0.006, r =0.896), minimum relative humidity (P =0.003, r =0.896) number of sunshine hours (P =0.010, r =0.876) levels correlated with fire area positively. The results of the linear regression between the burned and climatic factors were shown the coefficient of determination was 0.57. Artificial neural network to predict fire in forests was more fast and reliable method than linear regression.

Estuaries are considered as highly dynamic ecosystem that include the mixing or transition zone between river freshwater and saline water from oceans and seas. Estuaries are very important aquatic systems by preserving the coastal biota. Flocculation of metals during mixing of freshwater with saline water can be considered as the most important estuarine processes. Due to flocculation process, considerable amount of dissolved metals come into particulate phase that is enriched in nutrients for aquatic life. Flocculation process can remarkably reduce the amount of pollution load that reaches to the sea. The present study deals with flocculation process of dissolved Cu, Mn, Ni, Zn and Pb during the mixing of the Talar River water with the Caspian Sea water. Based on the obtained result, Zn, Mn, Pb and Cu show maximum flocculation respectively and Ni shows the lowest flocculation among the studied elements.

Social learning and knowledge generation are two key factors to achieve successful natural resources co-management. Social learning can be beneficial by broadcasting and transmitting experiences and problem solving ideas in a group of people. Social learning networks can transmit knowledge and experiences from one node to another in the network. Social learning can produce a suitable learning atmosphere among natural resource users in co-management processes. The goal of this study is to analyze the learning networks based on ecological knowledge transmission connectivity among 4 groups of rangeland users’ network in Lazur village, located in Firuzkooh Region and identifying key actors in social learning process. For implicating this study based on quantitative network analysis methods, network analysis questionnaires and linkages of indigenous ecological knowledge generation and exchange were gathered. The results show that density level of bonding ties in subgroup NO.3 is more than other subgroups, so social capital, cohesion and social learning of this group is more than other groups. The results of centralization index based on outgoing ties indicate more closure of knowledge broadcast and exchange network. Also, key actors in generation and transmission of indigenous knowledge were identified through centrality index. Finally, it may be stated that the social network analysis and identifying key individuals can help the managers and decision makers in programming social learning processes to transmit local ecological knowledge among users and finally successful co-management of natural ecological systems.

The aim of this research was to evaluate and select of appropriate indicators for different zones of Baghe shadi region where it have six different zones (restricted zone, protected zone, restored zone, inhibition zone, recreational zone and other uses zone). To do so, first top-down approach and Likert scale questionnaire was used for voting from 32 experts. After that using influence matrix, influence and importance of indicators were determined and the most important indicators as well. Then using system analysis and influence matrix, for the first five indicators of each criterion, influence and importance of indicators were determined in different zones and indicators were evaluated and then appropriate indicators were determined for each zones. Regarding to results of indicators evaluation, indicators related to area of forests and protective functions have the most importance and application in restored zone. Area of forests and other wooded lands, extent of area by forest type relative to total forest area, area of natural forests with healthy regeneration were appropriate indicators in restricted and protected zones. Also, Existence & implementation of management plan & protection for spectacular landscape area in region, extent of forest lands considered for recreation, accessibility for recreation and expenditure for access to tourism area were appropriate indicators in recreational zone.

Ecotourism is based on environmental potential and presents an opportunity for suitable utilization and conservation of the sites under management practices, considering accurate planning, potential of the area and people preferences. The present study is conducted to evaluate the ecotourism potential in MianKaleh wildlife refuge. The area is located south of the Caspian Sea. After defining the recreational activities and people priorities, we used Multi Criteria Evaluation for assessing the ecotourism potential. The approach included 5 steps: objective determination, criteria definition, standardization of criteria, assigning weights to the criteria using the analytical hierarchical process and finally criteria combination using Weighted Linear Combination method. Results show the area has potential for boating as the highest with 32879.7 hectares and camping has the lowest potential with only 353.88 hectares. Water depth and distance to shore were found to be the most affective in suitability mapping for boating,. Also, the most effective factors for camping were distance to access routes and water sources, so the suitability map mostly reflected these factors. Other uses in order of potential are swimming (21665.5), viewing scenery (3375.63), bird watching (1075), and horse riding (444.69). The final areas for each activity is changeable due to the competition of these in a multi objective land allocation. Overall, the results revealed that MCE method is capable of evaluation of wildlife refuge for various recreational activities. Also, the geographical information system was found a useful tool, allowing combination of many factors and Boolean layers. The system also can act as a decision support tool, letting stakeholders change weights and standardization within the accepted ecological thresholds and arrive at a consensus on the final results in an iterative process

Habitat recognition and knowledge of habitat requirements are extremely important to the wildlife conservation, particularly for endangered and vulnerable species. The purpose of the study was to determine which ecological and habitat factors contribute the distribution of black billed sandgrous (Pterocles orientalis) in Shirahmad wildlife refuge. Sampling was performed in two season (spring and summer 2010) and in eight transects. Presence points of black billed sandgrous along with human and topographic variables were mapped in GIS environment. This study employs one recently proposed modelling technique –. Maxent – to investigate the geographic distribution pattern of black billed sandgrous. The results show that the most important factors affecting on the distribution of black billed sandgrous include the distance from roads and distance from the water sources. According to the predictions, water resources and pasture have positive relationship with habitat suitability. On the other hand, habitat suitability has negative relation with the distance from the village and rivers. Results indicate that western part of Shirahmad wildlife refuge needs more attention to most effetely manage the population of this species. Furthermore, suitable habitat factors within black billed sandgrous habitat have to be improved.

To assess the sources, entry routes and degree of contamination of PAH compounds in surface sediments of the southwestern Caspian Sea coasts (Gillan province) total of 129 surface sediment samples from 28 rivers and 5 transect across the Gillan province coasts (from Astara to Lahijan; 10, 20 and 50 m depth) were collected in the spring and summer of 2012. After extraction using Soxhlet method, the samples were analysed using Gas chromatography-Mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and concentrations of 30 PAH compounds were determined. The mean of total 30 PAH compounds (TPAH30) in the coastal sediments (565.1±266.1 ng g-1) have shown significant difference (p

There is little chance for species with competitor to develop intraspecific variability such as sexual dimorphism. Sitta tephronota is a well-known rock-dwelling bird species in Iran, which occurs in Zagros Mountains in strong ecological competition with Sitta neumayer. Thus, no sexual dimorphism is expected for Sitta tephronota in this area. Despite the role of this species in the rise of the concept of character displacement and the importance of sex identification in field studies, sexual dimorphism in this species is little known. We used analysis of covariance for finding significant sex differences in 14 primary variables and applied a Bonferroni correction for multiple P-value thresholds of statistical significance. Morphological matrices were analyzed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in sympatric and allopatric zone separately to determine the distribution of males and females along the first two axes of PCA (size and shape) were strongly overlapped both in sympatric and allopatric zones. Our results suggest that other factors are involved in explaining the lack of sexual dimorphism in this species.