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Background and Objectives: One of the damages inflicted on natural resources is land use change. This issue is present in all regions of Iran with varying intensity and severity and is often referred to under various names such as land degradation, deforestation, etc. According to Iran's 1963 Law on Nationalization of Forests and Mountain Ranges, all forests, Rang, meadows and woodlands, with some exceptions, are recognized as public property, which is sometimes claimed by individuals or legal entities, including government or private institutions. This land tenure situation has been confronted. Some challenges such as illegal tenure and land use change. This type of land use change or illegal appropriation is sometimes referred to as “land grabbing”. The aim of this research is to observe the land use changes in Padena region of Iran in recent years, focusing on two land use types, reclamation and non-reclamation, as specified in the Second Natural Resources Development Law. The recent land use changes are compared with the maps prepared according to the Nationalization Law.

Materials and methods: The studied area is a part of the Marber River watershed, called Padnai-Olia, with an area of 54674 hectares in the southeast of Isfahan province. A study of temporal changes over a period of 58 years, from 1955 to 2013, was conducted to evaluate the fluctuations. The maps obtained from aerial and satellite images were analyzed with the help of geographic information systems and remote sensing. The satellite images for the year 2013 were obtained from Google Earth, the aerial images at different scales (1:20000, 1:50000, 1:40000) and the required maps were provided by the Armed Forces Geographical Organization and the Iran National Cartographic Center. A cross-tabulation analysis is used to compare the maps from different time periods. In this context, three land use maps corresponding to the present time and land use maps for a period of at least 15 and 51 years at a scale of 1:25,000 were prepared. On the other hand, law enforcement maps showing reclamation and non-reclamation areas were also requested by the Regional Natural Resources Agency. The land use map for law enforcement, based on 1: 50,000 maps produced by the National Mapping Organization in 1973, serves as the basis for delineating national lands and exceptions in the implementation of natural resource and watershed laws.

Results: The results obtained show that about 12.7% of land not designated for reclamation (rangeland) in the Padena region has undergone land use change. The highest rate of land use change occurred in the periods 1955-1969 and 1999-2013. The total area of rehabilitated land in 1955 amounted to 2095 hectares, which corresponds to 8.3% of the total area of the region. This area was increased to 6390 hectares (11.7%), 6595 hectares (12.1%) and 8776 hectares (16.0%) in 1965, 1999 and 2013, respectively.

Conclusions: The area of restoration areas in the current regulatory maps (6259 hectares) differs significantly from the Survey Organization's 1:50,000 topographic maps from 1973 (3358 hectares) and the maps derived from 1334 aerial photographs in this study (2059 hectares). Therefore, it is necessary to obtain accurate land use maps for this region.