Land Use Planning for Sustainable Development of Chehl- Chai Watershed of Golestan Province

Land use planning is the only rational way to avoid environmental crisis and attain sustainable development. The aim of this study is to develop a land use plan for sustainable development in the Chehl-Chai watershed in Golestan province. With the identification of the ecological resources in the watershed, using word national land use planning models, which is calibrated for Iran, land use mapping and classification were conducted. The environmental units map was overlayed with several thematic maps to obtain ecological capability for conventional land uses. Priority setting was then carried out by comparative- quantitative method to choose more suitable alternatives in the assessment units. In order to increase income and decrease conflicts between agriculture and range management, aquaculture, indoor recreation, and conservation alternatives, the land use allocation was finalized based on their acceptable ecological conditions. The results show that according to the capability models, land allocation to forestry, agriculture and range management, aquaculture, outdoor recreation, residential development and conservation is at a percentage of 64.29%, 5.57%, 0.24%, 1.01%, 15.41%, 6.75% and 6.72%, respectively. The Kappa index was then used to estimate the conformity of the future and the current land uses; the index calculated to be 0.18 which shows slight agreement between the two.