Evaluating Urban River-Valley's Ecological Function (Tehran: Darakeh River-Valley)

In order to reduce the destructive effects of urban life on landscape’s ecological function, it is necessary to harmonize human activities with the function of landscape’s natural elements. For achieving this goal, environmental sustainable development, through combining concepts of sustainability and ecology, has been recognized as a scientific tool. Systemic sustainable approach does not only aim for the conservation of ecological processes, but it also acknowledges the eco-socio profitability of constructing urban environments. The most important natural elements of Tehran’s urban landscape are Alborz Mountains’ river-valleys, running from the north to south, which have seen intense construction processes during the past five decades. Principles of landscape ecology highlight the importance of landscape’s natural elements and managing their organizational features through the process of planning landscape. In order to improve the quality of urban development plan, it is necessary to monitor landscape’s river-valleys’ hierarchy of ecological function: structural balanceof landscape’s ecological corridors; functional sustainability of landscape’s ecological networks; and living advancement of landscape’s ecological-anthropological network. To introduce the subject at hand, this research has aimed to evaluateTehran’s Darake River-valley’s hierarchy of ecological function. In this relation, major evaluating aspects are introduced and then based on analyzing the informations recieved by reports and observations some strategies are proposed.