Monitoring temporal and spatial changes in land use in the Shazand Watershed

The present study aimed to monitor the land use change in the Shazand Watershed with different development policies using land use net changes and exchanges in land change modeller (LCM) forperiod of1973to2014and in sub-watersheds scale. In the study period, rangeland area reduced about 380 Km2 and rainfed and irrigation farm lands increased successively 100 and 150 Km2 in the first and the second period and then reduced.The highest annual rate of orchard increase (0.265%) occurred in the third period. The highest increment for residential area (60%) and abandoned land (23.49%) were observed inthe second and third periods, and for the third and fourth periods, respectively. The results also showed that the highest increment of land use change in the mountainous sub-watersheds i.e., Azna and Nahremian occurred before industrial development period and then tended to the plain sub-watersheds i.e., Poledoab. Generally, the maximum land use change was observed in the second period (32.96%). The types of land management, the pattern and the process of land use change especially the expansion of industrial activities in the study region showed that the development policies had an important role in the study region and spatial and temporal patterns of land use change played an important role in creating the current state of the region. Accordingly, any land management program for the study region has to be planned with regard to the spatial and temporal patterns of land use changes considering the adaptive management of the watershed resources.