Land-use Change; Achilles heel to Overcoming the Environmental Crisis, Process and Impacts

Natural resources including forests, rangelands, rivers, sea shores, water fall, some mountainous landscapes such as caves, debris and alluvium fan are considered as unique heritages due to their contributions on environmental services and sustainability. However, these valuable resources are degraded mainly through anthropogenic land-use. Overcoming climate change and land resources degradation depends on controlling land-use change and saving our natural heritages, so that it is Achilles heel for overcoming environmental crisis. There are many factors contributing to land-use change mainly including climate change, land tenure and ownership, urbanization, official and legal shortcoming.
Based on literature review and field verification, the climate change is more serious in semiarid areas due to lower precipitation and higher hydrological lost. Despite the drastic increase of water demand during drought both runoff losses and deforestation processes severely accelerate the land-use change. Decline the forest and rangeland area as well as soil nutrient and organic carbon depletion are the important on-site impacts of land-use change. Furthermore, the areas of fair rangeland are being shifted to poor condition due to both conversion to rain-fed lands and overgrazing. Climate change is the main aspects of land-use alteration due to negative change in soil quality, particularly the critical extrinsic characteristics including SOC, soil nutrients, soil aggregates and bulk density. If current land degradation and land-use change continue, other impacts in terms of water deficit, desertification and migration can be spread throughout the semiarid region of Iran. Absolutely, overcoming these challenges depends upon saving our heritages including natural resources, unique landscapes, and an attempt to do proper agricultural activities.