Evaluation of the Efficiency of the CA-Markov Model in Predicting Spat-Temporal Changes of Land Use in Dust Source of South and Southeast Ahwaz

At present, the occurrence of dust storms is one of the most important environmental problems in Khuzestan Province, and the south and southeast regions of Ahwaz have been recognized as one of the interior dust sources and are the priority of corrective operations. Given that land use change is one of the desertification factors in the mentioned region, therefore, modeling its changes is necessary and provides useful information for planners to control and revive the degraded lands. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the CA-Markov model in predicting land use changes in the dust source of south and southeast of Ahwaz based on two long-term and short-term approaches. In the long-term approach, land use maps of 1986 and 2002 years and in the short-term approach, land use maps of 2002 and 2007 years have been used to predict land use for the year 2016 and then the simulation results were validated. The results showed that the values ​​of allocation error, quantity error, and kappa coefficient for the long-term approach were 42.55%, 13.95%, and 0.08 respectively, and for the short-term approach were 12.56%, 10.42%, and 0.22 respectively, which indicates the weak ability of the CA-Markov model to evaluate the desertification trend in the dust Source of south and southeast Ahwaz. Use of uniform transition rule throughout the simulation period without considering the factors and processes affecting land use change, the non-same trend of land use change during study periods, changes due to human activities, drought, and long forecast period can be the reasons for the poor performance of the CA-Markov model to predict the desertification trend the dust Source of south and southeast Ahwaz.