In order to explain the ecological-sociological strategy of Tehran land use network/ land cover, the present study was tried to identify the spatial process of the change in the landscape mosaic pattern and its effect on carbon sequestration over the course of 3 decades from 1990 to 2020. In this study, the role of landscape measures in the identification of landscape mosaic spatial pattern changes and its combination with data obtained from ecosystem service modeling was shown. To this end, after examining the process of structural-functional changes in landscape mosaic using decision tree algorithm and InVEST model, the complexity of the relationship between landscape spatial pattern and the quantity of carbon sequestration regulatory services at the two levels of class and landscape was addressed using the measures and data obtained from InVEST model. The findings indicated that the volume of carbon sequestration regulatory services in all periods had reduced due to the effects of the spatial process of “accumulation” in construction strains. Moreover, in the 1990-2020 period, the highest rate of carbon storage loss (291656 tones, 9.58%) occurred due to the effects of the spatial processes of “deletion” in green lands and “fragmentation” in barren lands. In the 2000-2010 and 2010-2020 periods, the volume of carbon storage reduction were 182209 (6.62%) and 159688 (6.22%) tones, respectively. Pertaining to this discussion was the finding that the effect of the change in the index of strain numbers in green and barren lands for all periods was accompanied by increased fineness, which indicates its reverse relationship with carbon sequestration rate. On the other hand, the reduction of other measures in green and barren lands reveals the existence of a direct relationship with the loss of a volume of carbon sequestration in the foregoing period. At the landscape level, the reduction of heterogeneity and simplification of the landscape mosaic spatial pattern led to the reduction of carbon sequestration. From this perspective, it is necessary to prioritize the identification of the spatial processes effective on the landscape structure model in the completion of the processes of the evaluation of the urban development effects on the carbon sequestration service current.

The development of urbanization in accordance with environment is an important issue for sustainability. A correct understanding of the relationship between urbanization and environment is highly vital for the coordinated development of both systems. In recent decades, the expansion of urbanization and manmade infrastructure without taking into account the environmental resources has been increasing. This has led to numerous consequences such as the reduction of environmental resources and the escalation of environmental pollution, and has severely endangered the future of sustainable development in Khorasan Razavi province. In the study at hand, the balance among urbanization and environment subsystems was examined using the coupling coordination degree model in the cities of Khorasan Razavi province. The ranking of cities was done based on the coupling coordination degree scores. Based on the scores of cities in each subsystem, the cities were divided into four areas, namely areas under urbanization pressure, areas under environment pressure, areas under dual pressure, and areas under no pressure, and the relationships between the coupling coordination degree and the areas were compared. The results showed that Gonobad (.66) and Dargaz (.62) cities have achieved the highest balance score and have been classified in the primary balance group. On the other hand, Khoshab (.36), Mahwelat (.38), and Davarzan (.39) cities had the lowest rate of balance and were classified in the average imbalance group. While the majority of the cities located in the areas under double pressure and environment pressure were classified in the low imbalance group, most of the cities located in the areas under no pressure and urbanization pressure were grouped in the near-to-balance category. Overall, based on the calculations made in this study, the coupling coordination degree has been increasing from dual pressure area to area under environmental pressure, then to the area under urbanization pressure, and finally to the area under no pressure.

After the implementation of the contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces as the driver of economic growth and the long-term development of cities and regions, this idea has come under criticisms, especially due to its compliance with capitalist structures. In practice, the problem is that the attractiveness of life, work, and recreation in these spaces is purely accompanied by the consideration of the needs of creative layers of society with a mercantilist view and through sacrificing many primarily qualitative and secondarily contextual indices. Therefore, although these recently found arenas have received positive global attention, they face some challenges. One of these challenges is the low quality of places in the neighborhoods entailing contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces. Therefore, the purpose of this study was the attainment of qualitative factors of the placemaking mechanisms and urban policymaking of contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces as well as the development of the existing conceptual framework to respond to the criticisms in this regard. The research method was the qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the related documentary data and provision of an answer to the nature of the palcemaking factors using unlimited classical meta-analysis of Persian and English resources, including the scientific-research articles, theses and dissertations, books, and reports, and then coding and counting the frequency of the analysis units. At the end, the meta-analysis of the resources led to the identification of 21 conceptual labels for contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces in the form of four dimensions of characteristic, form, performance, and image. Consequently, it seems that consideration of the requirements of placemaking the related spaces – including accessibility, participation, investment, acceptance, social liveliness, dynamism in activities, and integration – can help increase the quality of knowledge and innovation spaces in the contemporary era.

In recent years, the infrastructure systems have been mostly failed due to the increase in natural or manmade disasters as well as the internal and external dependencies among system components. The mutual infrastructure dependencies might cause more vulnerability and bring about cascading failures. The main objective of this study was to develop scenarios of geographic interaction in critical infrastructure during urban hazards in Ahvaz. The study was developmental-applied in terms of purpose, while in terms of methodology, it was descriptive-analytical done based on field study and document analysis. The study indices were extracted and related via combining the results of expert opinion and existing records. To develop scenarios, after identifying the variables, the key factors affecting each topic were specified, and then various conditions were defined for each variable. The identification of driving forces in Ahvaz infrastructures interaction was done using models such as “cross-impact analysis” using MICMAC software. In order to identify, analyze, and adopt selected scenarios, cross-impact balance analysis was run in ScenarioWizard software. The inspection of scenario screen in ScenarioWizard software showed that from among 80 existing settings of critical infrastructure spatial interaction drivers, 26 cases (32.5 percent) were in statistic form and 25 cases (3.125 percent) in critical conditions.

This study aimed at evaluating the supervised pixel-based classification of the maximum likelihood in the examination of the climactic changes of the Urmia Lake catchment area in 1-, 6-, 10-, and 14-year spans and then evaluating and modeling the changes in the gardens neighboring Lake Urmia during a 30-year span and its role in the changes at Lake Urmia water level. In this study, first the Landsat images of the years 1990, 2000, 2014, 2020, and 2021 were downloaded. Then, using the ENVI5.3 software, a classification was made based on the maximum likelihood method. Next, the IDRISSI TERRSET software and CA-MARKOV model were used to model conditions for the year 2051. This model was then analyzed in the GIS software. It was found that the classification based on the maximum likelihood method has been an appropriate one. The results of this classification showed that overall, the maximum changes from 1990 to 2021 has been related to the irrigated gardens and fields. In this period, 3495 square kilometers have been added to these lands, i.e., the number has doubled. Modeling the 2051-year conditions in the light of the transition probability matrix showed that the maximum likelihood of land use changes is in the irrigated garden and farm use. On the other hand, the modeling in this study indicated that there has been a reduction in the expanse of irrigated gardens and fields as well as salt lands in the region. Finally, the model predicted an increase in water area in 2051.

Land use in Shahre Rey has experienced unprecedented growth in urban areas in recent decades. Land use changes affect social, economic, and environmental conditions. Gathering information about these changes is essential for better planning and management of urban areas in sustainable development. Consequently, the object of this paper is to better examine the Shahre Rey land use changes affected by urban development and to investigate urban landscape integrity using the 1988-2018 "Fragmentation" index. Moreover, it was intended to provide solutions for the determination of hot spots based on appropriate criteria. With the help of Landsat satellite images, four land uses – including urban landscapes, agricultural lands, green spaces, and barren lands – were extracted and the extent of land use changes was determined. In order to investigate the fragmentation of Shahre Rey landscape, the metrics of the number of patches, patch density, and the largest patch were used. Cross-Tab was also used in a part of the study. The results showed that the land use areas of ​​urban lands and urban green space had increased by 369.7 and 55.6 hectares, respectively, while agricultural lands and barren lands had decreased by 213.8 and 211.5 hectares, respectively. In urban land use, integration had increased. In the green space and agriculture land uses, fragmentation has increased due to the creation and construction of roads. Based on the criteria of  "position relative to borders and roads as well as the area and size of patches,'' solutions were made to determine the "hot spots" of vegetation and residential areas to help making plans for the improvement of their conditions. The reason is that land use change, especially the loss of vegetation, has a negative impact on the landscape.

The goals of the present study were to analyze changes in land cover and to estimate a future scenario for 2028 using an artificial neural network in the Karaj Metropolis. To this end, the effects of land use changes in response to urban expansion on landscape patterns were investigated in three baseline, current, and future scenarios using landscape metrics and gradient analysis. The results showed that during a 22-year period, the agricultural and Garden lands have been severely damaged due to urban expansion. The results of the evaluation of changes in landscape also indicate that urban expansion in in development in the north-south transect to the margins (especially northward) and the east-west transect with a gentle slope to the west of the region. It is also anticipated that in the future scenario, if the current trend continues, the northern margin of Karaj metropolis will be changed from natural environment to a completely human-made one. Therefore, considering the results of the Pd and Ed metrics in both transects over the three examined years, it can be said that the area has expanded to the margin and there has not been much changes in the landscape of downtown. In addition, the decrease in the Pd and NP in all three scenarios indicates the consistency of urban landscape. In general, population growth and urban development have made the landscape pattern in Karaj metropolis to be a more regular and less varied one. The results indicate that spatial heterogeneity has altered the landscape patterns. Therefore, the growth of construction land in some areas should be restricted, and balanced development should be adopted to prevent the fragmentation of the landscape.

The habitat development and establishment are directly related to the natural bedrock and geomorphologic complications. Due to topographical and geological conditions, the area under study has certain limitations in locating and developing human settlements. In order to reduce the hazards in the southeast of Khorasan Razavi province and modify plans for the development and establishment of human settlements, the feasibility of the area under study for residential development was investigated. After conducting library and field studies and selecting appropriate criteria, the fuzzy logic model was applied using the GIS software to identify areas for habitat development and establishment. In this study, to identify the potential areas for habitat development and establishment based on geomorphologic landforms, eleven parameters – including slope, slope direction, elevation, soil, land use, elevation, distance from fault, distance from river, distance from road, distance from settlement, and geomorphology – were used as independent variables in identifying geomorphological abilities and bottlenecks in the area. The results of zoning based on the fuzzy model showed that about 61% of the study area is located in very inappropriate and inappropriate classes, which means that geomorphological conditions in this part of the study area are unfavorable for the development and establishment of human settlements. About 14.58% of the study area has moderate conditions and about 24% of the study area shows favorable geomorphological conditions for construction activities and creation of new habitat areas. Alluvial fan units and alluvial plains are the most suitable sites for habitat development and establishment.

Investigating the changes in groundwater aquifers in planning the sustainable management of water resources in each region is of particular importance. Therefore, reducing the level of groundwater aquifer changes requires proper management and planning to exploit water resources. In this study, the level of groundwater aquifer changes in Urmia Lake basin was examined for the period from 2002 to 2017 using GRACE satellite data (JPL, GFZ, CSR triple bands, CRI Filtered model, time and space filter, and Lew-Thiknth uncertainty dry product) in the Google Earth Engine. The results of the triple bands showed that the JPL band estimated the average level of groundwater aquifer changes on May 1, 2004 as 14.947 cm, while the GFZ band on estimated this as -30.558 cm on September 1, 2015 and the CSR band estimated this amount as -28.206 cm. Therefore, CRI Filtered model can very accurately identify the boundary between land and water zones. The results showed that this model estimated the maximum thickness of liquid water in the groundwater aquifer at March 31, 2002 as about 11.599 cm and its uncertainty at about 9.767 cm. It can be said that the least amount of thickness of liquid water is estimated on 13 August 2015 as 12.309 cm with an uncertainty level of 10.759 cm. According to the results, the level of groundwater change in aquifers in terms of liquid water thickness parameter (Lew-Thiknth) in the northern parts of the Urmia Lake basin and in terms of uncertainty in the northeastern part of the Urmia Lake basin is experiencing a strong decline in the aquifer water levels.

The identification of areas appropriate for the sustainable growth and development of touristic activities is among the main topics of tourism planning. With its positioning between a mountainous area and a plain, Dorud city enjoys topographic diversity and numerous natural attractions that need proper management and appropriate planning in order to attain the objectives of the sustainable development of tourism. Aiming at the examination of the potential of this area for recreational-sport trekking ecotourism, the study at hand set out to assess the ecologic power of this area using multi-criteria evaluation method. This study was applied-developmental in terms of purpose, and descriptive-analytical in terms of research framework. Since the identification and evaluation of tourism potentials is a multi-criteria decision-making question, five main criteria groups – including physical, ecologic, infrastructural-bodily, safety, and economic-social criteria groups – and 25 secondary criteria for the recreational-sport trekking tourism were developed. The weighted linear combination was used to integrate the criteria. Then, the final map for ecotourism activity in the region was drawn in three spaces with low, mid, and high capability. The results of the final desirability map showed that 6.9 percent of the area has high potential for recreational-sport trekking. Moreover, the results of TOPSIS revealed that Qarun and Oshtorankuh mountains are the first and second top ranking mountains for recreational-sport trekking, respectively. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate the appropriate areas for recreational-sport trekking, which can function as a guide for tourists, managers, and planners to make decisions and administer developmental policies in the light of environmental and socioeconomic approaches and considerations.