Ecological Capability Evaluation of Babolrood Watershed using Geographic Information System

Forests area of Iran in comparison with the world is very low and this low area is in demolition threat always. Hence, the remainder of these forests should be managed based on ecological capability evaluation. With regard to importance of subject, in this study, ecological capability for forestry in the Babolrood watershed, Mazandaran province, was evaluated and for this purpose, the Analytical Hierarchy Process and Geographic Information System (GIS) were used. Respectively in first, Criteria and indicators were selected and relative weights were assigned using Delphi method and expert's judgment. Then, indicators were mapped in GIS environment. In final, ecological capability map for forestry was created using GIS-based Weighted Linear Combination technique. Results showed that 4072.5 hectare for forestry has one class capability and respectively 25667.2, 8801.5, 1482.9 and 103.1 hectare have the two, three, four and five classes’ capability. 11597 hectare of study area has got no capability for forestry.