Quantifying the Changes in Persian Gazelle Habitat in Shirahmad Wildlife Refuge Using Landscape Ecological Metrics

Today, pristine nature and remote habitats from human impacts have become very rare. Establishing protected areas is a conscious effort to support the last survivors of biodiversity, which more or less maintains their natural characteristics in the current unsustainable state of developments. The capability of the landscape ecological approach to trace ecological processes throughout a vast spectrum of spatio-temporal scales with special attention to cultural impacts, make it possible to understand the real consequences of human activities and their related planning efforts. In the present research, in a ten-year period of time from 2006 to 2016, the changes in Shirahmad Wildlife Refuge landscape has been investigated in order to determine the effects on Persian gazelle habitat. For this purpose, after preparing and processing satellite images of the studied area, land coverage maps for this region were extracted, for the specified period of investigation. Then, in order to quantify the changes in the Persian gazelle habitat, landscape ecological metrics were calculated. The results of metrics calculating indicate an increase in the area and continuity in the Haloxylon and Tamarix trees besides reduction in area and fragmentation and changes in shapes and number of patches in rangelands, salt marshes and agricultural land covers which is mainly due to the emergence of villages and residential areas and human activities such as overgrazing and natural causes like drought.