Vulnerability assessment of Neurergus kaiseri habitat for promoting its conservation

Habitat destruction is one of the most important threats to amphibians. In this regard, considering the national and international importance of Neurergus kaiseri species, it is very necessary to study the vulnerability of its habitat; Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the vulnerability of Neurergus kaiseri habitat on the boundary of Lorestan and Khuzestan provinces in order to increase the level of conservation of this endemic species . To achieve this purpose, various topographic, hydrogeomorphological, geological, climatic, Land cover and human data have been collected through library, image-based and field methods and analyzed using various tools, especially Arc GIS software and FAHP model. The results of modeling the intensity of vulnerability of Neurergus kaiseri habitat showed that among the 21 indicators, indices of distance from spring and waterfall, distance from drainage, distance from road and land use with normalized weight of 0.117, 0.113, respectively. 0.107 And 0.102 gained the highest level of importance in determining the intensity of the final vulnerability. The results also showed that out of 48 Neurergus kaiseri stations in the study area, 23.5% had very high vulnerability, 33.3% high, 29.2% moderate, 16.7% low and 8.3% intensity vulnerable. They are very few; therefore, it is necessary to protect the areas with the highest density of Neurergus kaiseri and with periodic monitoring and tracking, the necessary planning be done to protect and prevent the extinction of this species.