Evaluation the Distribution of Effective Factors on Habitat Diversity in Kermanshah Protected Areas

Destruction and habitat fragmentation are considered as the most challenging issues of biodiversity and establishment of protected areas is one of preventive methods to reduce biodiversity. Therefore, there are different criteria to choose it. Kermanshah province has covered different habitats due to its diverse ecologic condition. The current study aims to evaluate and compare the distribution of effective indices on habitat diversity in protected areas of Kermanshah province. In this regard, Surrogates such as altitude, slope, aspect, roughness  of altitude, Shortwave Infrared Water Stress Index (SIWSI), Compound Topographic Index (CTI), normalized different vegetation index (NDVI), vegetation type and Roughness of NDVI have been used as Biodiversity surrogates. Since the protected areas should be indicative samples of their surroundings, all the mentioned variables were prepared for Kermanshah province area and then all maps for slope and cover type were divided into 10 classes based on Jenks method. Shannon-Wiener (H), Simpson (D) and Macintosh (D) indices were used for diversity analysis, and Pielou (J') and Macintosh (E) indices were used for richness analysis. The results show that in terms of diversity indices for slope, CTI, altitude, NDVI, roughness  of altitude, Roughness of NDVI, SIWSI and slope ,Hashilan no hunting area, Ghalajeh protected area, Nava Koh no hunting area, Dalakhani and Amroleh no hunting area, Bistoon protected area and Bistoon Wildlife Refuge have the highest diversity indices, respectively. The slope and CTI variables share most similarity in terms of distribution of classes among the protected areas, and the vegetation type variable has had the least similarity among the protected areas. Among the hunting-banned and protected areas, the highest diversity exists in the Amroleh and Dalakhani and Bistoon protected area, respectively.The results of this study can be useful in choosing the correct complementary protected logic.