Comparison of Iran Provinces Regarding to the Chemical Fertilizer Consumption in Crop Production Using the t-map Package of the R Software

One of the best method for presenting both spatial and temporal information in a map is through spatiotemporal maps. In this study, creation of spatiotemporal maps of chemical fertilizer consumption in Iran agriculture has been considered. The necessary primary data of this study,that contained recorded data of the years 1395 to 1399, was obtained from Internet resources and after some modifications with the aid of the t-map package of the R software, final data was converted to spatiotemporal maps. According to the results of this study, the largest chemical fertilizer consumer among Iran provinces was the Khuzestan province that consumed more than 200000 tons per year in the all years considered herein. Other provinces with high fertilizer consumption have been Fars, Golestan, Khorasan-e-Razavi, Mazandartan, and Kermanshahan. Moreover, provinces located in the Iran's central Kavir consumed more chemical fertilizer per unit area of croplands. For example, specific fertilizer consumption of Yazd province is more than  kg ha-1 in this time period. It seems that the farmers of these provinces have tried to compensate for the severe environmental conditions for crop production in these regions by aiding the crops with more chemical fertilizing.