Assessing the effect of development management scenarios in mitigating the residential and agricultural land use conflict

Residential land encroachment on agricultural areas presents a global challenge regarding land use management. Such a challenge needs crucial attention in Iran where agricultural activities suffer from resource shortage and land use management practices are ineffectively planned and enforced.

An attempt was first made to delineate agricultural land use suitability. Two scenarios namely Current Development (CD) and Environmental Development (ED) were mapped and transplanted to CA-Markov model to simulate urban growth up to 2030, 2040 and 2050. Finally, severity of conflicts was analyzed based on loss of the extent and the corresponding suitability of agricultural lands.   

The results showed that ED scenario is more successful in protecting suitable agricultural lands than CD scenario (nearly one thousand ha). Moreover, CD scenario is projected to occur in areas with relatively higher agricultural suitability values. The difference between the scenarios is not significant for near future (2030), but significant for the ending simulation period (2050).

ED scenario is more succeeded in protecting quantitative and qualitative agricultural lands. By implementing this scenario from now, it takes 35 years to significantly mitigate the conflict between the two land uses. However, the effectiveness of such scenarios requires simultaneous attention to socio-economic parameters.