Strategic Planning for Reviving the Natural Environment of Tehran River Valleys (Case Study: Darakeh River Valley)

During recent decades, Tehran County has faced a considerable growth in urban dwellers. This huge rate of urbanism and subsequent use of land for urban habitation, without taking the environmental potentials into account, has caused serious consequences and has led to environmental destruction in Tehran and a disruption of the balance between the county and the environment. Urban river valleys, as one of the elements of ecological structure of cities, can play an efficient role in creating a balance between the human-made city structure and nature, but their widespread use has caused a hyper-pressure on the natural environment resulting in the waste of natural elements such as trees, vegetation, water pollution, etc. Thus, providing and increasing recreational places, planning natural environments in order to save and revive natural ecosystems and the optimum exploitation of them appears to be absolutely vital. This paper is descriptiveanalytical and is based on a SWOT strategic analysis combinational model and the QSPM strategic planning model. This research has explored the process of planning for reviving the natural environment of river valleys in Tehran County and has taken Darakeh river valley as a case study. Performing field studies and reviewing records, it provides some strategies in order to plan for reviving the natural environment of this river valley based on existing facilities and opportunities, limitations and threats. The results of the research shows that the selected QSPM strategy is of the highest priority among the other five strategies, namely the selective strategy, protection strategy, reviving strategy, strengthening vegetation strategy and natural settlements strategy, with an attraction score of 6.048.