Determination of homogenous areas for ecosystem services supply in the central part of Isfahan province

Determining and identifying homogeneous regions for ecosystem services supply is an effective and useful step in improving land management. Therefore, in this study, after quantifying and mapping ecosystem services, aesthetic value, recreational value, and noise pollution reduction, the K-Means clustering method was used to identify homogeneous areas of ecosystem service supply and homogeneous areas zoning was prepared in the GIS environment. To investigate the effective parameters on ecosystem services supply, the slope, altitude, population density, distance from access routes, distance from the river, percentage of available land uses and distance from the centre of the largest urban region were extracted for each homogeneous area or cluster. Based on the Davis-Bouldin validation index, the optimal number of clusters was 4. Cluster number two with the area of 686.27 Km2 was the largest, while cluster number one with the area of 119.75 Km2 was the smallest in the area. Investigation of environmental-social parameters showed that land use has the highest impact on ecosystem services supply. The results showed that there is a direct relationship between these parameters and ecosystem services supply in each cluster. Based on the results of this study, investigation of homogeneous areas of ecosystem services can be effective to improve land use planning and management.