The Management and Planning of Kangavar Geographical Area for Agricultural and Rangeland Uses

The assessment of the ecological potential of the environment is to determine and measure the potential power and the natural use type of the land. Therefore, the environment power assessment is a tool for the management of geographical space and strategic planning for sustainable development and correct use of land sources. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ecological potential of agricultural and rangeland use in Kangavar city with an area of ​​883.9 km2 using Makhdoom ecological model. To this end, the required data and ecological resources were collected and generated. After creating and combining the maps in the ArcGIS system in a multi-hybrid way, the maps of environmental units were constructed and the ecological potential of the area was evaluated using the features of each environmental unit. To do this, the indicators and variables that could be involved in each of these models were examined. To classify the ecological potential of the area for agricultural and rangeland uses and to produce the map of different classes potential, 15 parameters were used as criteria for weighting and measuring the power. The results of Kangavar city ecological potential assessment led to the extraction of 58 environmental units in 7 classes with completely suitable, suitable, weak, and unsuitable power classes for agricultural and rangeland use. An area of about 356.79 Km2 was found to have suitable and completely suitable power for agricultural use. In addition, it was estimated that an area of about 72.23 Km2 would be appropriate for rangeland and rainfed agricultural use with suitable power. An area of about 483.26 Km2 of Kangavar city is currently allocated to agricultural use, while the optimal area for this means is 356.79 Km2. Thus, the land use of an area of about 126.47 Km2 has been converted to agricultural purposes. According to the results, the lands of the region have been exploited more than their potential for agricultural use (irrigated and rainfed) and the lands with rangeland use have been changed to agricultural use.