Investigating the Impacts of Land Use Changes on Soil Erosion in Givi City using the MABAC Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model and Landsat Satellite Images (OLI-TM Sensors)

In recent years, the mutual impact of land use change and soil erosion has become a major environmental concern. Therefore, this study tried to investigate the changes in different land uses and evaluate the impacts of land use changes on soil erosion in Givi city. To achieve the goals of the research, first, a land use map was prepared using the object-oriented method for the two periods of 2000 and 2021. Then, according to the natural and human conditions of the area, other effective factors for erosion in the area were identified and the information layers of each of the criteria were prepared by the geographic information system. Evaluation and standardization of layers were done using the fuzzy membership function and weighting of the criteria was done using the CRITIC method. The final analysis and modeling were done using the MABAC method as one of the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods. The results showed that the largest area in 2000 is related to good and medium pastures, recording 313.172 and 283.144 square kilometers, respectively. In 2021, the biggest areas are related to poor pastures and barren lands, with 335.077 and 329.815 square kilometers, respectively. According to the 2000 erosion zoning map, 16.34% and 20.36% of the city and according to the 2021 erosion zoning, 22.92% and 25.58% of the city’s area are in very high and high erosions, respectively. Decreasing good and average pastures and lands with dense vegetation and turning them into agricultural areas, poor pastures, and man-made and barren lands have had the greatest impact on soil erosion.