Investigating the visual pollution of non-heterogeneous land uses in the tourist areas (Case study: Dohezar and Sehezar forests of Tonekabon)

Development requires land, and the most obvious feature of the development, land use change, and hence pollution of the land's landscape. For an investigation into the effect of disturbance on the landscape, land use map, using Landsat satellite image of 2016, is produced. Calculating the LPI, LSI, MPS and SHDI metrics, the two viewpoints are considered in the case study area. The height of the observer is applied to the DSM map of this region and a visible zone of these points is determined. Therefore, the visual disturbance criterion is examined. According to the man-made and natural uses, this criterion is quantified, considering the above-mentioned metrics. LSI value changes from one to infinity. At the first viewpoint, amounts of the LSI are 21.32, 19 and 2.35 for forest, pasture and mine respectively. Also, in the second one, 7.27, 26.91, 22.24, 1.66, 3.90 and 13.78 are obtained for residential land, forest, pasture, aquaculture, agriculture and rocks. Small LSI numbers of mine, aquaculture and agriculture, being about one, indicates the presence of a human in these areas. The results of MPS and SHDI metrics show that the natural land use of pasture and forest are cut by the man-made of mine. From the second viewpoint, forest, pasture and rocks, having large and close MPS numbers, give a natural face to the landscape. The presence of agriculture, residential and aquaculture with small MPS values, being different from the natural land use, causes a lack of naturalness and disturbance in this part of the region. This study could develop the new and basic method for the understanding of landscape changes in the planning and management fields.