Suggestion the Proposed Model of EMOLUP, with New Approach in Land Use Planning (Step One: Ecological Capability Evaluation for Different Land Uses)

Land use planning is a science that specifies the optimized use of land based on its ecological and socio-economic characteristics. Most assessment methods such as that used by FAO, the Iranian method of land capability survey of the environment and its components and also evaluation calculations without prejudice are all based solely on the inherent territory. However, these methods ignore socioeconomic factors and estimate land capability incompletely. In this study, we survey the land capability evaluation using GIS and the EMOLUP (geometric mean and calibration methods) model. Then, comparison was undertaken between the different capability evaluation models, such as makhdoum, its revision and arithmetic method for different uses. The results showed that the proposed model (EMOLUP) has higher accuracy for estimating the real capability in the arid and semi-arid study area.