ntegrating the Geographic Information System (GIS) and multi-criteria decision-making processes in locating the natural-regional parks Case study: Mazandaran Province

Statistics show that more than half of the world's population (54% in 2014) live in urban areas, although there are many differences between countries in terms of urbanization levels. For the first time in history, the urban population exceeded the rural population of the world in 2007. One of the most important problems of urban and environmental development is the shortage or lack of natural-regional parks in the center of the cities and in suburbs. Natural and regional parks have social, economic and ecological impacts in terms of the coherent structure which, is considered as a significant criterion for the betterment of the quality of living space and development of the community, with lots of benefits such as obtaining a suitable environment to develop the social coherence, maintain comfort and treat psychological and mental illnesses.Identifying the suitable locations for the natural-regional parks is one of the cases that should be taken into consideration regarding any type of development, including comprehensive plans, civil plans or regional plans. The purpose of this paper is to achieve the spatial organization of Mazandaran province in order to construct and allocate natural and regional parks in the regions of this province using the new scientific methods of spatial analysis in the GIS environment and applying multi-criteria decision-making techniques.
Research Method: The process of this study is descriptive and analytical.  Accordingly, the necessary data and criteria, including maps and information layers and satellite imagery were analyzed using ARC GIS 10 and ENVI 5.1 software. In order to weigh,in addition to taking the experts point to the criteria into account, the Marinoni extension in Arc GIS software was used with regard to the hierarchical decision-making process. The main criteria used in this study are natural vegetation, transportation network, welfare and service centers, cultural-educational centers, commercial-residential areas, population centers, industrial areas. As it was mentioned, the information layers were provided for each of the influential factors, and a weight was assigned to each of the layers, and then, appropriate weights were assigned to each of the information layers based on their significance using hierarchical analyzing model to provide the spatial modeling, and the information layers were integrated, and the optimal regions were identified using the provided model. Identifying and selecting the factors influencing the location, are among the significant stages of the study. The more compatible are the identified factors with the land reality, the more satisfactory will be the outcomes of the location. Accordingly, in this study, weights have been assigned to each one of the weights based on the opinions of the experts, using the hierarchical model, and the criterion of the transportation network with relative normalized weight (0.311) has had the most importance among the main criteria.Natural vegetation (with a normalized score of 0.277), population centers (with a normalized score of 0.271), and travelling facilities and services (with a normalized score of 0.120) have been placed in the subsequent ranks, respectively. Accordingly, in this research, with regard to the opinions of the experts, four main criteria of industrial, population centers, commercial-residential, cultural-educational, welfare and services, transportation network and natural vegetation, each one of which includes sub-criteria as well,were taken into consideration .A combination of the AHP process and Fuzzy set was used for analyzing the spatial data, in order to evaluate the selected factors and the Geographic Information System (GIS) as well. As it is seen, areas with a very good desirability in Kalastan have accounted for 6.6%, and areas with the lowest potential for the construction of natural-regional parks in Kalastan constitute 5.5%. Similarly, areas with medium potential and regions with relatively appropriate potential in Kalastan of Mazandaran show an average of 12.4% and 10.1%, respectively. Estimates show that about 129817 hectares of the area of the province are susceptible to creating regional parks, i.e. the area No. 1, which will be a significant amount for the decision-makers and planners in the urban and regional areas in pursuit of achieving sustainable development and protecting the natural environment of this province. In the next regions, the priority of the selection will be with the experts and decision-makers of this field. The purpose of this research was to identify the areas susceptible to the creation of regional parks in the province of Mazandaran, in order to provide the sustainable financial resources for the management of the province while, protecting the natural resources of the province.