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.

Air pollution is one of the most important problems of industrial cities. The existence of large industrial factories, official and industrial facilities, National Iranian South Oil Company, National Iranian Drilling Company, etc., have turned Ahvaz to one of the main industrial centers and one of the most polluted cities of Iran. Coming into contact with airborne microorganisms is related to a host of negative effects on the human health. This study was carried out to find out the effect of oil industries on air pollution and its optimal locating through the environmental approach in Ahvaz metropolis. In this study, SCREEN3 software was used to find out and analyze the distribution of Sox, NOx, and CO pollutants. Based on expert opinion, the main criteria were determined as climatic, natural, environmental, and economic factors. After calculating weights through the AHP model and attaining the information layers, the GIS software capabilities to combine and overlap the maps were used. This led to a map depicting the optimal location of oil industries congruent with the environmental approach in Ahvaz metropolis. According to the obtained results, there should be no residence-based activity in at least 5000 meters distance from the oil industries, where air pollutants have a considerable density. That is to say, within this distance, the animate and inanimate creatures will be damaged the most. The most optimal areas for the establishment of oil industry facilities are located on the west, south, southwest, and parts of east and north of the area under study.