Investigating the land use changes in peripheral rural areas (Case study: Birjand city)

Today, the most important issue facing Iranian cities can be extensive changes in agricultural land use in urban peripheral spaces. Effects of changes in agricultural land use are included the prevalence of unproductive capitalism and land speculation around cities, particularly in the provincial centers.In Iranian cities, two growth scenarios can be observed: A scenario of slow horizontal growth or organic growth that is in the Pahlavi era and especially before the land reforms of the 1940s The main features of this time are the domination of the physical development and intrusion of the population to the city. Another scenario is the rapid horizontal or non-organic growth that is almost 30 years old. This scenario has caused cities to face a number of problems including the destruction of agricultural lands -gardens or farm. The rapid growth of urbanization in Birjand and consequently its physical development has affected the villages of its immediate area.The present study, after examining the changes in rural land use according to the superior plans and using satellite images in three time periods from 2005 to 2020, tries to answer the following questions:How is the trend of land use changes in the peripheral villages of Birjand?to what extent does land use development in the studied villages fit in with the standard land use indicators?  

The present research is a descriptive - analytic study. The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluating land use developments in peripheral rural areas of Birjand. Data collection were done an evidence-based survey, using documents and reviewing the literature review to formulate theoretical foundations and collect research indicators. First, we used various scientific sources including books, articles, scientific reports and related documents as well as classification techniques, resource evaluation, note-taking and summarizing. In the field study, multi-time remote sensing images and GIS, direct observation and interview methods were used. ArcGIS, Excel and Envi model were used to analyze the data. In this study, this model was designed with the aim of predicting the development trend and land use changes in the year 1399 (2020) horizons. Satellite images of 2004, 2009, 2014, 2020 were used to predict and detect changes.  

In general, regarding the development of residential lands, Amirabad village with 35.14% growth has had the most change in the last 15 years. Consequently, the demographic changes of this village will be more than other villages in the study area. The most changes in agricultural lands has taken place in the villages of Amirabad and Dastgerd by 9%. However, in the village of Amirabad we see a decrease and in the village of Dastgerd we see an increase in agricultural lands. Also, in the villages of Amirabad, Hajiabad and Cheknd, non-irrigated lands have decreased and only in Dastgerd village, there is a 4% growth of non-irrigated lands. After determining the land use changes, their quality status is necessary to evaluate.Three indicators of dependence, compatibility and desirability of qualitative evaluation were utilized. They indicated a relatively appropriate and moderate situation among land uses and a similar situation in all 4 studied villages

Land use changes were evident in the studied period; nevertheless, it was more noticeable in two villages of Amirabad and Dastgerd. The quality of changes in the studied villages is different based on the three indicators of dependence, compatibility and desirability. The dependence indicator is the highest in in Amirabad village with an average of 3.36. the compatibility of land use changes in Hajiabad village was the highest with a score of 30.3. The desirability indicator in Chekand village is the highest with a score of 3.45.