Evaluation of the wood harvesting and livestock on the degradation of forest using ‎‎optimized degradation model

Forestry projects often result in inconsistent environmental impacts and consequences, including wood exploitation and livestock grazing. The aim of study is to evaluate the effect of wood harvesting and livestock on the degradation of Kheyrud Forest in Nowshahr city using the optimized forest degradation model in four scenarios of current situation, without wood harvesting, without livestock, and without wood harvesting and livestock. Homogeneous environmental units were prepared using ecological resources. A set of human activities and the intensity of the impacts in homogeneous environmental units were obtained. After predicting the coefficients of model in the scenarios, the statistical comparisons of the outputs and the significance of changes were evaluated. Due to the abnormality of the data, Kruskal-Wallis test was performed for statistical comparison of coefficients of degradation in four scenarios. Considering the results, there is a significant difference between the coefficients of degradation in different scenarios. The average coefficients of degradation in the current situation, without wood harvesting, without livestock, and without wood harvesting and livestock scenarios are 1.49, 0.72, 0.9 and 0.3 respectively. According to the results, livestock and wood exploitation are the most important factor influencing forest degradation. The model, which has been used in this research, has a high capability in predicting and comparing different scenarios and management policies as a decision support system in the forest; and using this model we can evaluate forest plan impacts before and after the implementation of project.