Effects of preservation policy on land use changes in Iranian Northern Zagros forests

Zagros Forest provides various ecosystem services such as food, timber, water, carbon storage, air purification, wildlife habitat as well as social and cultural benefits for both humans and animals. Due to the economic expansion beginning in the early 1990s in Iran and its resulting desertification, Zagros has lost numerous forests over the last 30 years. To overcome this issue, Zagros Forest Preservation Plan (ZFPP) has been under implementation in Northwestern Iran since 2003 to reduce forest destruction and attract the people's participation. However, it faced shortcomings caused by a variety of factors including insufficient funds, incomplete preservation, and unsuitable organization during implementation. This research aims to study the effect of ZFPP on forest loss in Sardasht County as a representative of Iranian Northern Zagros Forests. A series of Landsat images were used to analyze the forest loss before ZFPP implementation (1993–2002), after 10 years of implementation (2002–2012), and finally after its revision (2012–2016). Land Change Modeler (LCM) was employed to detect land cover changes for land cover prediction in 2024. We used land cover maps between 2002 and 2012 for calibration. We then compared the predicted land cover map from LCM with actual land cover map in 2016 for validation. The results indicated that 3330, 4562, and 1234 ha of forestlands converted to agricultural lands, rangelands, and built-up areas during 1993–2002, 2002–2012, and 2012–2016, with annual deforestation rates of -0.40%, -0.52% and -0.36%, respectively. The highest deforestation rate was observed between 2002 and 2012 because of the destructive effects of population growth. Land cover prediction indicated that per capita forest area would continue to decline while the other land cover uses would continue to grow more severely around the existing agricultural lands and built-up areas in Sardasht until 2024.