فصلنامه علوم و مهندسی محیط زیست
شماره 53 (1391)

Unlike other natural ecosystems, wetlands management is highly dependent on the upstream watershed condition and activities. Any development activity and water resources operation in the basins located in upstream areas can significantly affect downstream wetlands. Therefore, there is a need for integrated and basin scale approaches in developing wetland management plans. The most important and known approach which can provide a reliable support for developing the management plans at this scale is “Ecosystem Approach”. The project of "Conservation of Iranian Wetlands" (CIWP) aims to improve the socio-economic situation of the local communities by applying this approach in a completely participatory process at the basin level and with cooperation of all national and local stakeholders to develop an integrated management plan for Uromieh lake, Parishan and Shadegan Wetlands. Application of this approach has provided a good basis for the convergence and cooperation of all stakeholders in management of mentioned wetlands. As a result, these management plans have inter-sectoraly been approved at the cabinet and provincial planning councils as the highest decision making structures at national and provincial levels and started implementation of them by each responsible institution in the plan. Obviously, this approach is a new process for managing wetland protected areas which institutionalizing it within department of environment and development plans will play a crucial role in sustainability of these valuable ecosystems. This article provides a review on methodology and CIWP experience on three Iranian wetlands, Uromieh lake, Parishan and Shadegan wetlands.

International Ghara gheshlagh wetland located in southeast part of the Urumieh lake, is a valuable habitat for dozens of rare migratory bird species during the migration seasons. Any residential development in this wetland would have severe consequences and cause irreversible damages. Environmental capability assessment for housing development according to different capabilities identification of suitability and consistency, determining environmental capability potential, and also evaluating the environmental damages, are crucial needs for expansion of human settlements. Therefore, it is essential to plan for human settlements with consideration of balance between residential areas sustainable development and environment. In this paper, ecological and environmental capabilities of Bonab region are evaluated using Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach, in terms of Ghara gheshlagh wetland and environmental damages. Results showed that this region is not suitable for residential development, due to presence of Ghare gheshlagh wetland and only 5% of this region is suitable for such development activity.

Ala-Gol, Alma-Gol and Aji-Gol wetlands are situated about 60 km southwest of Gorgan city in the province of Golestan, Iran, These complex wetlands area is 3027 hectares and are one of the most valuable and important habitats in Iran from hydrological, biological and ecological point of view. And were reorded in the list of Wetlands of international importance in 1975. These wetlands included in Montreux Record in 1993 due to occurred changes in ecological characters as a result of developments, pollution or other human interference during the last two decades. Therefore it is essential to provide them with a comprehensive management plan for restoration and rehabilitation. According to the the management planning guideline of Ramsar convention, some studies and surveys conducted on occurred changes in ecological characters including drastic reduction of waterfowl birds and waders following over-hunting, decreasing in wetland water levels following unsustainable water operation, developing proper management strategies to mitigate these pressures, analyzed and implemented in 4 context. These context included in interaction among relevant organizations, determining some restriction rules to water over uses, controlling the land use changes around the wetland, organizing the recreational activities, education of local people, enhancing public culture and conducting works for improving the conservation status of wetlands. Finally Ramsar convention secretariats experts confirmed wetland restoration after 16 years performing management plan and these wetlands removed from the Montreux Record as the first experience for Montreux Iranian wetlands.

Bird migration is a behavior that has evolved over many thousands of years and many of bird species have such behavior. Wetlands are incredibly diverse ecosystems that play significant role in bird species migration. Studying the bird habitats and migration routes can be useful for understanding behavioral mechanisms and conservation of habitats. In this research, two wetlands in Hamedan province and their importance as stepping– stone habitats have been studied. Waterfowl birds and waders enumerated at Agh-gol and Abshineh wetlands during ten months and Shannon-Wiener diversity index was calculated. The results showed that Agh-gol has a higher diversity than Abshineh wetland in September, October and November (2007), May and June (2008) and lower diversity in December, March (2007) and April (2008). In January and February no bird species was recorded because both of wetlands were frozen. Total birds observed in two wetlands were from 58 species that 46 species of them observed in Agh-gol and 42 species were in Abshineh wetland. Finally birds’ migration and stepping– stone habitats concept and role of this habitats have been discussed and concluded that wetlands need more consideration of conservation and management actions because of important roles that they play as stopover habitats in migration routes of birds.

In recent years human activities have disturbed ecosystem balance on the earth and caused many environmental issues that posed serious consequences to their lives. Unauthorized underground water uses are increasing, especially in arid and semi arid regions of country in recent decades because of the droughts that have occurred within these decades. Parishan wetland is in south west of Fars province, in Dashte-Arzhan-Parishan protected area, and is the largest freshwater lake in country. The water level of this wetland has strongly dropped due to different factors such as drought and unauthorized well drilling around the lake in recent years. In this research eight buffer zones from the lake were created using ArcGIS and wells in each buffer zone were extracted in order to investigate the current well effects on water level. Total annual discharge of all wells in buffer zones was obtained, and finally regression analysis used to examine the relationship between water level and well discharges in SPSS 16. The results showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between water level and well discharges at 99% confidence level with high correlation coefficient for all buffer zones. Regression analyses showed that human factors and wells have significant effect on decreasing in wetland water levels.

Ephemeral pools are critical aquatic habitats for their diverse plants and animals. These pools are usually shallow waters and can use for feeding and reproduction of migrant birds, especially Flamingos. Nowadays, poor management and planning practices related to urban and agricultural development have resulted in destruction of these valuable habitats. The loss of vernal pools resulted in recording some of plant and animal species dependent on these pools on endangered species act. Therefore it is necessary to effectively plan and manage human activities for the purpose of protecting these unique features and ensure their role in the maintenance of a healthy environment. In this paper the conservation management practices of vernal pools is discussed. The management protocols included in field inspection, water and soil sampling in wet and dry periods, decision making about management, conservation and restoration of wetlands. Management of catch flow rate of current invertebrates with aquaculture values such as Anostraca should be occurred on expert based technical surveys and with consideration of preserving the existence of these pools and their populations. Also maintenance of pools hydrology and chemical properties of water, prevention of toxicants and preserving the genetic diversity should be considered.

Waste water treatment plant of Yazd city was established in early 1990s and now about 30% of household waste water of city is treated in aerobic and anaerobic lagoons and released to an area of 200 ha with 180 ha green space. Thus an artificial wetland has been created in the region with no previous plant cover. In this study the environmental aspects of this artificial wetland were investigated in the region of arid and desert in Yazd province. Fifteen waterfowl and migratory as well as terrestrial birds were identified in the study area during four years of monitoring in winter (January). The most important migratory bird species that observed during this study were Anas crecca, Anas platyrhynchos, Himantopus himantopus and Phoenicopterus ruber and most important of land birds were Falco cherrug, Falco tinnunculus, Aquila rapax and Motacilla alba. Reed and some of planted trees such as Tamarix, Halloxyllon and Eucalyptus were the most important plants of the wetland. The results showed that this artificial wetland had positive effects in terms of creating a suitable place for temporary settlement of passing and wintering migratory birds, developing green space in the country side and air quality improvement. But it would have the negative side effects such as probabilities of microbial pollution propagation through the bird populations, the appearance of various insects, probability of new diseases incidence in the region and soil contamination.

Today satellite imagery is the latest instrument for detection of changes in land cover and water surfaces. In this paper to detect water and canebrake changes in Hamoon international wetland Landsat multispectral scanner (MSS) data from 1976 and ETM+ data from 2005 were processed and analyzed. Ground truth was obtained from Google Earth. After qualitative controls and geometric correction of points, images processed and different bands merged. The results showed that Hamoon area was 397541.27 ha in 1976 and its green canebrake cover at that time was 122836.24 ha. Also in 2005 after re-inundation, these areas decreased to 327673.69 ha for Hamoon and 17295.01ha for green canebrake cover. These results showed the decrease in water area by 17.57 % and green canebrake cover by 85.92 in 30 year time interval. Decrease in green canebrake cover has adverse effect on the climate of Hamoon basin and human life due to increasing of dust emissions through removal the lake sediments.

Miankaleh wetland is one of the critical complex ecosystems which is a very important internationally-recognized refuge for migratory birds. Furthermore, regarding its ecological characteristics, this wetland has been chosen as biosphere reserve by Man and the Biosphere(MAB) program committee. This wetland is considered as a wildlife refuge and was listed as a protected area in 1969. The goal of protected areas management is not only protection but also their biophysical resources can be used to some extent. These exploitations should be along with integrated management plans and based on their ecological resources. Therefore it is essential for these areas to have a comprehensive environmental management plan. In this study significant environmental resources in the study area were identified, analyzed and tabulated, then environmental capability of the area were evaluated. Land units were made by overlaying different made layers and set a basis for next decision making. The ecological Zones (Core, Buffer, Recreation and Reclamation) were determined. The results showed that there are 387 ecological environmental units with three different zones as conservation, recreation and forestry zones in this area.

Increasing population in the two recent decades have led to destruction of nature and changing its land cover by human being for providing their extreme needs. Land use change detection during long and mid terms is one of the most important tools for planning and sustainable management of resources in macro level scales. Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) are recent tools for analyzing and processing natural features that provide managers and decision makers with valuable information for planning and monitoring of remained resources. In this research land use changes trend in Anzali watershed, Gilan province was assessed by GIS and RS. Land use maps created and its changes were detected using the satellite images of Landsat (MSS 1975, TM 1989, ETM+ 2000) and IRS (LISS III & PAN 2007) in six land use classes and at 4 time intervals. Then changes in land use compared with previous status of them. The results showed that land uses have widely changed during studied time intervals and 1774 ha of forest and rangeland areas, 12363 ha of farmlands and gardens, 1123 ha of poor land and 143 ha of wetland areas converted to urban lands.

Mangrove forests are one of the world's most productive ecosystems which have threatened due to human activities and natural events in recent years. Lack of developed criteria for selection of protected areas resulted in decrease of mangrove forest areas. The main objective of this paper was to identify of conservation criteria and indices for the Aviccenia marina species which has widely distributed through the world and provides many environmental and economic values for humans as well as other living organisms. After reviewing 23 relevant literatures, effective criteria at three global, local and structural levels as well as two global-local and local- structural levels were indentified and categorized. We identified 3 criteria, 9 sub criteria and 42 indices for selection of suitable areas for developing mangrove communities. 1.65% of identified criteria were at global, 53.2% at local, 18.18 % at structural, 10.74 % at local-global and 15.70 % at local – structural level respectively. Also the results showed that land properties criterion and land chemical features and water quality sub-criteria have the most importance in determining spatial distribution of mangrove forests and most useful criteria were in local level.

Estimating the monetary value of wetland services is a way for understanding the importance of investment in conservation and improvement of wetlands. Ghorigol wetland is one of the most important environmental resources of Azerbaijan province that had been recorded as an international wetland in Ramsar conventions. In this study conservation value of Ghorigol wetland has estimated using contingent valuation (CV) method and use and non-use values of this wetland was divided using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Respondent’s mean annual WTP for conservation of mentioned wetland was 113963 Rials and total annual wetland conservation value was 33630 billion Rials. According to AHP results, use values (direct, indirect and option values) and non-use values (existence and bequest values) acquired 54.5 and 45.5 percentages of total wetland conservation value, respectively. Due to considerable proportion of non-use values in total wetland conservation value, policy makers should pay special attention toward conservation of wetland’s natural condition.

In this research the structure of zooplankton populations as well as physicochemical properties of water including water temperature, total suspended solids (TSS), water clarity depth, total phosphorus (TP), dissolved phosphate (PO4-3) were studied in three sampling points during April 2009 to April 2010 (13months period). Nutrients and total suspended solids of samples were determined by spectrometry and colorimetric methods respectively. Depth of water clarity was determined using Seccchi with 30 cm diameter which was read at sunlight and half-standing position. Zooplankton samples were collected using column stretching conical plankton net with 45 microns mesh size from the one meter above water bed to water surface level. In this study, about 9 genera of Copepoda were identified and the most and least densities were related to Cyclops genus with average of 149 individuals per m3 of water and Diaptomus genus with average of 0.1 individual per m3 of water respectively. Total mean density of Copepoda in Valasht lake estimated to be 249 individuals per m3. Maximum and minimum density of Copepod observed in May with average of 638 individuals per m3 and in January with average of 8 individuals per m3. A strong positive correlation was observed between the density of Copepoda and dissolved phosphate (PO4-3) and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations.

Hamoon wetland which located in easten part of Iran with prevailing warm and arid climate playes an effective role in moderating of its surrounding bioclimatic condition. The method used in this is based on climate modeling using meso-scale The Air Pollution Model (TAPM). Modeled sample days were selected by using atmospheric data from Zabol weather station. Meteorological effects of Hamoon wetland were analyzed with assuming two scenarios of dry and wet conditions for the lake. Therefore, based on model output results, relative humidity, air temperature and wind speed were evaluated and analyzed in spring and autumn terms. Model outputs indicated a very significant impact of wetland on relative humidity in spring. Moderating effect of wetland, especially in the night temperatures, in both fall and spring period is notable. The wind velocity in both dry and wet conditions, the results of model shows the lower values than recorded in weather station. The correlation coefficient between model output and Zabol weather station data for the variables of temperature, relative humidity and wind speed in dry scenario (or with water) in spring periods, were respectively, 0.956, 0.897 and 0.66 (0.966, 0.875 and 0.695), which were significant at 99% significance level and therefore the model outputs are acceptable. Variables of temperature, relative humidity and wind speed in dry scenario (wet scenario) in autumn also had respectively 0.829, 0.759 and 0.829 (or 0.877, 0.764 and 0.852), were significant at 99% significance level.