مجله پژوهشهای محیط زیست
سال پنجم شماره 10 (زمستان 1393)

Perception of aesthetic concept is one of the most important and required issues in designing recreational areas. Methods of aesthetic evaluation divide into two distinct parts: community perception evaluation and expert evaluation. In expert evaluation methode, valuation is based on visual concepts and objective beauty of landscape through scientific methods, but in community perception evaluation, evaluation is based on the sense experience, values and cognition of the individuals. The goal of this paper is objective assessment of landscape aesthetic values in Ziarat watershed basin using artificial neural network through multi-layer perceptron method. Mapping and standardization of criteria were done after reviewing the available documents, determining the effective criteria and generating the relevant layers for the study. Then, the suitability map of aesthetic values was obtained using the MLP model. The probability image created during the process was used to assess the accuracy through ROC. The ROC index was calculated at 0.875 which endorsed the accuracy of the model. Our experience shows that artificial neural network method is an appropriate tool for landscape aesthetic values modeling in the study area. The results of this model could eventually ease site selection process for recreational areas in more beautiful places.

South Khorasan province is less developed areas and new province with important challenges in the way of development and progress. Existence of 14 years successive droughts, desertification, the lack of infrastructure, evaporation and transpiration 10 times more than rainfall, annual reduction 143 million m3 of groundwaters, existence of capitation 0.25 hectare of agricultural land and lower than the standard for each person with 90% of weak rangelands, average and low production capacity and efficiency more than 2 times the capacity of using the rangelands for each cattle unit are serious challenges that the province faces. Choosing the best development strategies according to the most important opportunities and threats and strengths and weaknesses can be effective aid for decision-making for province development. This study following the main features and development strategies is based on weight quantitative methods. Analytical hierarchy process method (AHP). Then, analytical network process (ANP) in matrix SWOT for resolving of the Problem of AHP was need. In this method inner and outer dependency matrix of groups and criteria were calculated for modelling and analysis of data strategies were weighted and were prioritized the main strategies in assessment matrix. strategies for operation in special economic zone (SO3) are best to maintaining and restore new energies and tourism strategy are in the later stages for development of South Khorasan province.

In recent years, social networking sites have grown significantly in internet. These networks have created a good atmosphere for environmental public participation. Social networking is the powerful, accessible, user friendly and popular tool with technical services for environmental public participation. The environmental public participation in Iran on Facebook as the most popular social network has grown in recent years. In is paper, the history of the environmental public participation in Iran is studied on Facebook. The findings show that, the environmental public participation has increased on the social network of Facebook between 2011- 2014. The frequency of the environmental pages which are active in public participation shows the process of growing up. The shared memes contain the different subjects and manners of expression. The findings suggest that the spread of the memes in environmental public participation have the positive and negative impacts which are discussed in the conclusion.

The goal of this study has been the analysis of faculty members’ competencies for sustainability education. Study is descriptive-survey research. Collecting data has been conducted through questionnaire with inspiration from CSCT model. Statistical samples were 40 faculty members with less than 20 years experience at University College of Agricultural and Natural Resources, University of Tehran. Descriptive statistics was used for analyzing data. The results indicated that among faculty members’ competencies for sustainability education, highest priority refers to competency related to action. Competencies related to emotion, systems thinking, and ethics and value, have second to fourth priorities, respectively. Lowest faculty members’ competency about sustainability education has been competency related to capture sustainability knowledge. Based on the results, competency of 45 percent of faculty members for sustainability education has been below average, and competency of 47.5 percent of faculty members has been fairly high.

This study has been done to provide a management plan to protect the marine ecosystem values in North Pars number three through the identification of biological environment of the sea and to estimate the percentage of seabed coverage study was based on direct observations, measurements and laboratory analysis to evaluate the results. In general, the parameters include coastal ecosystems (coastal zone to sub-tidal zone), aquatic ecosystems (aquatic plants, plankton, macrobenthic invertebrates and coral communities), species at risk and protected areas. For this purpose, a preliminary study of marine has been done in two coastal zone between tidal and sub-tidal, by using Mantato, diving operations and underwater photography and grab Methods. Study of the components of the seabed coverage in tidal zone has been performed by using diving operations along one transect perpendicular to the shore and in three stations. To evaluate the the components of the seabed coverage, life cover percentage such as (soft coral, hard coral, dead coral, seaweed, urchin, sea cucumbers, clams, mollusks, crustaceans, and other inorganic materials) were determined. The results of study, indicate the moderate diversity of coastal zone in terms of geomorphological, coastal bed type and also sensitive biological resources in study area.

Power generation by fossil fuels causes environmental pollution especially greenhouse gases (GHGs). Although nuclear power is known as a no-GHG technology, but there is GHG emission in life cycle of nuclear power plant. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a “cradle to grave” approach for assessing different systems, which could assess all environmental impacts in life cycle of a process. Therefore In order to assessing GHG emission of Bushehr nuclear power plant, LCA is a useful tool. In environmental impacts classification by LCA, “climate change” is an impact class. The method for characterization of climate change is “GWP100”. Results of LCA of Bushehr nuclear power plant indicate that NOx and CO2 emissions have the most important impacts in life cycle of Bushehr power plant.

The petrochemistry has potentially huge environmental pollution hazards and harmful impacts on environment so it knowns as a pollutant industry over the world. On the other hand, there is special focus on developping the petrochemical industry because of its considerable benefits in our country.According to our upstream environmental laws and regulations, it is necessary to prepare an environmental impact assessment report before construction of any petrochemical plants. This report can be a powerfull tool for identification and management of project impacts. But our practices in petrochemical plants showed that current process is not successful for this purpose. In this study, the authors discuss on current environmental impact assessment process at first and then provide some suggestions and recommendations for improving the environmental impact assessment studies.

Today the world is experiencing an unprecedented urbanization. Population growth and urbanization are effective factors on increasing the air temperature in urban areas which cause heat island on these areas than surrounding and the resulted effects from that can play an important and major role in air quality and consequently public health. In this study, Landsat 5 TM data in 2009 as a case study in Tehran metropolis was studied and mono-window algorithm was used for retrieving the distribution of land surface temperature and determination of local heat island effects. In addition, the correlation between LST and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the normalized difference build-up index (NDBI), the normalized difference bare land index (NDBaI), the normalized difference water index (NDWI), were analyzed to explore the impacts of the green and bare land and the water and build-up land on the urban heat island. The results indicate that the effect of urban heat island in Tehran is mainly located in west industrial and east and southeast Mountain regions. The correlation between LST and NDVI, NDBI, NDWI, NDBaI also indicates that the negative correlation of LST and NDVI and NDWI suggests that the green and water land could weaken the effect on urban heat island, while the positive correlation between LST and NDBI and NDBaI means that the built-up and Bare land can strengthen the effect of urban heat island in our case study.

This research has been done in the C2 cracker plant of Arya Sasol petrochemical Company for identifying Hazards and determination of maximum Risk Priority Number (RPN). Environmental Risk Analysis done by using of E-FMEA base on life cycle phase. After identification of production process, equipment and their function were studied. laboratory analyzed sample of pollutants material in air & wastewater and measured noise, were analysedPotentially damaging factors are identified and those were classified focused on the likelihood, extent of contamination, the possibility of recycling and the effect on the environment.Environmental aspects (= 64) and impacts (= 67) were identified by EFMEA method.20 risk (low), 30 risk (medium), 4 risk (high) and 10 risk were very high than degree of risk that higher risk was related to flaring operation and Greenhouse gas emissions of the furnace cracking with RPN=125. Regard with the degree of risk degree number (= 35), RPNs, this number is higher than the critical RPN introduced to control and define corrective actions.Among, Preventive and corrective actions mentioned installation exit pollutants of exhaust control system, air flow adjust, fuel injection to burner, recovery and re-use CO2, are sew to name.

After 20 years of act in 1995 for EIA process in Iran for some plans and developing projects in addition to the legal position in the environmental assessment process and increasing the number of plans and projects about environmental assessment from 7 to 51 topics of plans and projects we are facing, in recent years significant increase in the number of evaluation reports. Now after two decades of the environmental assessment process it is time has to analyze this 20 years process to detect of strengths and weaknesses.

Nowadays different kinds of driving forces put pressure on environment. Change in land- use and land- cover is one pressure, which is caused by factors such as human population increase. Our country environment is affected by landscape degradation, vegetation cover change, and change in land- use and land- cover. Land-use change is a complex, dynamic process that links together natural and human systems. It has direct impacts on soil, water, and atmosphere and is thus directly related to many other environmental issues of global importance. The case study here has been investigated in the Kish Island in order to analyze the trends of changes in the landscape. In order to produce land- cover maps and to detect changes over two passed decades, the satellite images of SPOT2,1992(HRV sensor),IKONOS2001(panchromatic) and Land sat 2001 and 2012 ETM+ were applied. The calculated landscape metrics includes metric of class area, largest patch index, number of patches, landscape shape index and interspersion and juxtaposition index. The applied method for imagery classification was the maximum likelihood algorithm. Our finding from landscape metrics analyses reveals that the natural vegetation cover of the Kish Island has been changed generally and man-made land uses shows a great increase. The expansion of road network has led to landscape degradation and the construction of fishing and commercial seaports has totally changed the landscape in coastal zone. The fragmentation of land and coastal zone habitats and the replacement of natural cover with incompatible human land uses are the consequences of unsuitable development. The findings of this research urge that proper attention should be paid to land utilization and on alleviation of environmental destruction in study area.

Oshtorankooh Protected Area as vast as 93950ha is located at central section of Zagros Mountain Range, east of Lorestan Province between 28.33 to 33.12 Northern latitudes and 49.25 to 48.58 eastern longitudes, where cities such as Dorood, Azna and Aligoodarz lie along this range. Astonishing beauty and exquisite landscapes of Gahar Lake has persuaded a great number of local people and of neighboring provinces come to visit the area on foot or by car every year and spend some time there, resulting in discarding extraordinary amounts of wastes. In this research, according to annex 4 “System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA)”, various types of wastes are studied and computed. On this basis, the wastes are classified to 5 categories: solid wastes, airborne wastes, waterborne wastes, recovery and recycling of wastes, and relapsing waters, which different types of them are seen in Oshtorankooh Protected Area. Special capability of the area to attract tourists encouraged us to estimate economic value of self-purification function of ecosystems for assimilating local wastes and effluents using Replacement cost and Benefit Transfer methods. The results show that in 2012 total annual net value of self-purification function of assimilating local wastes and effluents are both $1 million.

The condition of Iran nature is how that most parts of it are located in arid a desert regions, besides that, great parts of some countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and also countries located in vicinity of Persian gulf in south and west of Iran, and also some other ones such as Pakistan and Turkmenistan in the east north of the country have the same conditions that can be turned into critical centers for dirt and sand storms in which Iran is also influenced by their effects.Using petroleum mulch for stabilizing has been used in the past. Thus, many of physical and chemical specifications and also its performance are known for experts.One of the material that can be used in stabilization of moving sands, is a polymer named polylastis, it is a natural – based polymer with a ceracelink chain which provides possibility of bonding solid particles of sand together, and then prevents movement of sands particles against winds with speed even more than 100km/h. Polylastis polymer has been certificated by Iran Entrepreneurship and Technology Company which is responsible for assessing the scale of materials and Nano products in the country. Moreover, center of research, cooperation development and modern industries of ministry of industry, mine and trade has adopted this polymer as one of the advanced and developed industries. It has been also verified by Iranian research organization for science and technology (IROST) as an environmentally friendly product which is also useful in seed and plan growth.The studies in regard to efficiency of polylatis for stabilizing moving sands and also possibility of planting performed in laboratory scale and after patent registration in Iran, it used in Abouzeiclabad region in Kashan by Behkavpouya Company and in cooperation with forest and rangeland organization. Subsequently, it is used and investigated in other regions such as DashteAbbas, and Minab city. Stabilizing surfaces of tailings dams and mining deposits of industrial planet such as Golgohar iron ore, steel factory of Khuzestanand ALMAHDI aluminum has been examined, whose results have been confirmed (except for durability period of 2 years which was expected by forest and rangeland organization). Durability period of this polymer depending on general condition of the region, spray amount and planned target is 12-18 months. So that after two winters there is enough time for the plants growth in order to stabilize sands. Moreover, it is possible to enhance durability period by providing appropriate equipment in the field of mixing spray or mixture of liquid spray over surfaces and also mixtures as grout.