Landuse optimization in some southern slopes in Ahar Chaey Watershed

Watershed resident's benefit increasing and soil erosion controlling are the main goals of agricultural sustainable development. Landuse optimization operation is an effective solution in order to maximizing the benefits, as well as minimizing soil erosion damages. Current research was executed in southern parts of Ahar Chaey Watershed in East Azerbijan Province. In this research, Multi-Objective linear programing based on Simplex method applied for optimizing landuse in form of three different scenarios: current landuses, implementation of management into current landuses and performance of the standard landuses by WinQSB software. Results showed that due to landuse optimization, irrigated orchards could be increased from 1.736 to 6.629 km2. In addition, based on suitable soils and adequate rainfalls, it is expected to expand the rainfed orchards up to 9.72 km2. Also, the weighted average of soil erosion reduces from 16.3 to 14.8 and from 10.11 to 9.5 tha-1year-1 within the first and second scenarios, respectively. This rate will reduce up to 6.8 tha-1year-1 in the standard landuse situation. On the other hand, maximizing results showed that the annual net benefits increases from 6.6 to 12.9 and 8.46 to 14 million Rails per unit area in the first and second scenarios, respectively. This rate increases up to 15.67 million Rails per unit area for standard landuse situation. Sensitivity analysis results showed that irrigated and rainfed orchards are of high sensitivity in maximizing profit functions due to high profitability of these landuse in unit area. In contrast, the rangelands, forests and drylands are of high sensitivity in soil erosion minimization, so that with increasing their area, soil erosion will increase significantly in the region.