Identification and Structural Analysis of Land Use Drivers (Case Study: Fahadan Neighborhood, Yazd Historical Context)

The core of land use planning is to guide and strive to influence land use change. Guiding these changes requires identifying and analyzing the relationships and effects of driving forces. In recent years, several factors of the historical context of Yazd city led to the change of residential land use to warehouse, industrial and other land uses. On the other hand, with the global registration, the implementation of local plans and the entry of tourists, residential uses have become commercial and tourism uses. These rapid and uncontrolled changes could pose a threat to the preservation of cultural and historical heritage in the future. 

This research is of applied, mixed and survey type. In order to extract land use change factors from library resources and to analyze and identify key factors and drivers of land use change in the study sample, Delphi technique and interaction analysis method in MICMAC software have been used.

Land use change factors are presented based on the number of interactions in 4 categories of driving factors, two-way, independent and dependent actors of dominant economic role of the city, government and local policies, access to the road network, international competitiveness, proposals for upstream projects, building wear, demand for any type of use or activity, dependence on oil economy and trade and land rent are the driving factors and key factors. That any change in these factors causes a change in other factors and any change in the system causes a change in these factors.

The registration of Fahadan historical neighborhood on a global scale has led to rapid changes and the formation of uncertainties in its land use. Uncertainty and intermediate state of most factors lead to an unstable pattern of land use system in this neighborhood in the future.