Zoning of Angoran protected area with the approach of Multi-Criteria Evaluation and Landscape metrics

Urban development and increasing economic activities lead to the disintegration of the integrity of protected areas and threaten their biodiversity. this study was conducted in Angoran protected area of Zanjan province to identify the spatial pattern of threats to biodiversity and the impact of development on the integrity of protected areas. In this regard, evaluation criteria of biodiversity threats were defined in four components, which are structural, non-biological, combined threats and the risk of units being isolated. In the structural dimension, the fractal coefficient, shape coefficient and the average slope were considered. In the combined dimension, the habitat was evaluated using the artificial neural network method. In terms of the risk of units being isolated, the nearest neighbor index was used. After preparing the mentioned maps, weighting of criteria was done. In final, biodiversity threats evaluation was done by three methods weighted linear combination, ordered weighted average and Boolean. The results showed that according to the weighted linear combination method 15995 hectares of the studied area are in the range of very high risk. This value was for the ordered weighted average method 11634 hectares and for the Boolean method 17347 hectares. In general, the Boolean method has estimated the amount of high and very high-risk areas more than the other two methods.