Journal of

---

In order to study the accuracy of assessment of the canopy cover density of a pure Persian oak stand with mixed coppice and standard forms using terrestrial digital photography, 16 circular sample plots with an area of 4.9 in a grid with sizes of 25 m by 25 m, over as forest stand with an area of 1 ha, with was used. The method of vertical sighting with Same as Cajanus tube was considered as the method of control to record either present or absent of canopy cover in 195 systematic sample points in each of sample plots. 9 vertically terrestrial digital photographs that contained of an image in the centre of the sample plots, 8 images in line with the bout main and sub- main geographic directions were taken. By calculation of the percentage of the canopy component of the forest stand using these methods, the results of the Kruscal–Wallis statistical test showed that there were not statistically significant differences between the different methods of estimation of the canopy cover component. In terms of the superiority of the bias indicator over the other methods, the method of 5 digital images in the main geographical directions, the method of 9 digital photographs and the method of 5 digital images in the four sub-directions were ranked from 1 to 3, respectively. The different methods of terrestrial digital photography would underestimate the canopy cover component in comparing with control method.

---

Background and purpose: One of the damages inflicted on natural resources is land use change. This issue is present throughout all regions of Iran with varying degrees of intensity and severity, often referred to by various titles such as land degradation, deforestation, and more. According to Iran's Forest and Range Nationalization Law in 1963, all forests, Rang, meadows, and woodlands are recognized as public property with some exceptions; which, at times, has been subject to encroachment by individuals, whether real or legal entities, including government or private entities. This situation of land ownership has been confronted. Some challenges such as illegal-possessions and land use changes. This kind of Land use change or illegal passions is sometimes labeled as “land grabbing”. In this research, the objective is to monitor land use changes with a focus on two land uses, reclamation and non-reclamation, as stipulated by the second law supporting natural resources, within Padena region in IRAN in recent years. The recent land use changes will be compared with the maps prepared according to the nationalization law.
Methods: The studied area is a part of the watershed of the Marber river, called Padnai-Olia, with an area of 54674 hectares in the southeast of Isfahan province. An examination of temporal changes was conducted over a period of 58 years spanning from 1955 to 2013 to assess the variations. Maps obtained from aerial photos and satellite images were analyzed using geographic information systems and remote sensing. Satellite images related to 2013 were obtained from Google Earth, and aerial photographs in different scales (1:20000, 1:50000, 1:40000), and required maps were prepared from the Armed Forces Geographical Organization and Iran National Cartographic Center. Cross-tab analysis is used to compare the maps of different periods. In this regard, three land use maps corresponding to the current time and land use maps for a minimum of 15 and 51 years ago were prepared at a scale of 1: 25,000. On the other hand, law enforcement maps, indicating reclamation and non-reclamation lands, were also obtained from the regional office of natural resources. The land use map for law enforcement, drawn based on 1: 50,000 maps from the National Mapping Organization in 1973, serves as the basis for delineating national lands and exceptions in the implementation of natural resources and watershed management laws.
Results: The obtained results indicate that approximately 12.7% of non-reclamation (rangeland) areas in the Padena region have undergone land use changes. The highest rate of land use change occurred in the time intervals of 1955-1969 and 1999-2013, respectively. The total area of rehabilitated lands in 1955 was 2095 hectares, accounting for 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 rehabilitated zones in the current regulatory maps (6259 hectares) exhibits a significant difference compared to the 1:50,000 topographic maps of the Survey Organization in 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 in this region.

---

Background and purpose: Various factors affect the occurrence, spread, and controllability of forest fires. A hazard fire zones map can be obtained by knowing the important influencing factors. This map shows fire severity in different zones and stages which provides a suitable tool for managing, preventing, and reducing the damages caused by fires to the natural resources manager. This study aims to prepare fire hazard severity zones based on the range of these environmental factors in the forest areas of Mamsani and Rostam counties in the northwest of Fars province with an area of 2188.7 square kilometers.
Materials and methods: The environmental criteria that were used in this study include elevation, slope, slope direction, distance from the road, distance from residential areas, distance from agricultural lands, average annual temperature, average annual precipitation, and land use. After collecting data from different sources, the fuzzy concept was applied to standardize the criteria by using different fuzzy membership functions. A hierarchical analysis process (AHP) was used to weight the criteria and prioritize them. For this purpose, a questionnaire was prepared, and criteria were scored by experts. All the weighted criteria were overlayed by weighted linear combination method (WLC). To obtain the weights of the criteria, the data obtained from the questionnaires were extracted and analyzed in the Expert Choice software. Each of the selected criteria was also prepared as a map using the geographic information system (GIS) in the ArcMap software environment. Finally, the fire severity risk map was prepared in five categories of very high, high, medium, low, and very low fire severity zones.
Findings: The results show that the burned areas show a high compliance of the implemented model with the existing situation. Among the studied factors, the three main factors of fire in this area are distance from agricultural land, distance from road and distance from residential areas with relative weights of 0.254, 0.1971 and 0.1786 respectively. The results showed that the most fires occurred in the 1500-1900 elevation class and 0-10% slope class. As the slope increases, the rate of fire has decreased. Also, the southern aspect has been prone to fire.
Conclusions: So, it can be concluded that most fires have occurred in areas where human access to those areas is more and easier and other factors are less important. Also, the results of this research showed that forest fire risk zone mapping can help managers prevent fire in different forest areas.