Land Quality Assessment in Protected Areas, Using Degradation Model

The main issue of this paper is monitoring of sustainable land management using land quality assessment in protected areas. We aimed at improving indicators to assessing land quality in protected area (case study: protected complex of Touran) and explaining land quality from past to present. Around the world, the methods of land quality assessment are in two kinds: one based on detailed biological data and the other based on assessing human activities. Degradation Model follows the second one. Components of this model include cumulative past to present impacts, physiographic density of population, and habitat vulnerability which calculated by AHP, EA and reciprocal effects matrix using GIS. Finally the area zoned based on land quality.