GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
Year:2013 | Volume:1 | Issue:4|Papers Count:10

Introduction: Urbanisation changes the land cover types in urban areas and results in different climatic conditions, which has been termed as “Urban climate”. Urban climates are different from those of less built-up areas in terms of air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and amount of precipitation. The previous researches show that urban areas are warmer than surrounding rural areas creating the "urban heat island" (UHI) (Rose and Devadas; 2009, 2). The buildings, concrete, asphalt and industrial activity of urban areas causes UHI. Replacing natural land cover with pavements, buildings and other infrastructures takes away the natural cooling effects. Also, tall buildings and narrow streets can heat the air trapped between them and reduce airflow. In addition, heat from vehicles, factories and air conditioners adds heat to the surroundings, further exacerbating the heat island effect. UHI can impact local weather and climate, altering local wind patterns, spurring the development of clouds and fog, increasing the number of lightning events, and influencing the rates of precipitation. Furthermore, the poor air quality that results from the increased energy usage for cooling purposes in heat-island city can cause discomfort for humans and affect health, aggravating asthma and promoting other respiratory illnesses (Liu and Zhang, 2011: 158).

Introduction: Population growth, along with the rapid development in industrial and many urban sectors, and lack of sustainable development approach in urban planning are all caused great changes in environment in form of pollution and ravage. In urban environments, complexity of spaces and urban manmade phenomena as well as the lack of regular and continuous measurement of atmospheric elements and components such as surface fluxes, turbulence intensity, overnight stable layer depth and inversion layer, daily mixed and boundary layer and energy balance components which are generally the input of dispersion models have made uncertain mechanisms in dispersion of pollutants over Tehran. One of the important aspects in the study of air pollution is how the pollutants disperse from sources of emissions. Wind direction, turbulence conditions and fluxes in near surface atmosphere are the most important climatic factors that affect dispersion pattern and distribution of air pollutants leaving from emission sources.

Introduction: Post-disaster Quality of Life (QoL) assessment can be considered appropriately for monitoring and evaluation recovery plans and interventions. Particular reference has been considered to both understanding various aspects of the disaster’s impacts, and establishing people’s perceptions on their living circumstances and life chances after the event. Planned and involuntary resettlement after natural disasters has been considered as a major policy in post-disaster reconstruction in developing countries over the last few decades. Studies show that resettlement can result in adverse impacts on the resettled population. Conversely, a well-planned and managed resettlement process can lead to positive long-term development outcomes. Studies on post-disaster resettlement in rural areas of Iran revealed that these actions do not respond to all the needs of residents. Occurring extreme rainfalls, in August 2005 in Eastern part of the Golestan province in North of Iran, caused two devastating flood disasters and damaged several villages. After considerably long discussions, planners and policy makers decided to relocate a significant number of villages incorporating them in larger area. Finally in this area 11 villages replaced and integrated in one place but 3 villages were replaced without integration.

Introduction: Long-term climate records are valuable for environmental planning, and tree rings allow records to extend to the time before the establishment of weather stations. For a better understanding of the past climate fluctuation and to mitigate the effect of climate fluctuation, dendroclimatic reconstructions have been applied in many parts of the world. Inter annual variations of climate have an intensive effect on water resources, agriculture, human settlements and regional ecosystems. The central Zagros region of Iran experiences different climatic situations over the seasons of a year. In recent years, dramatic changes in regional climate have damaged both local forests and agriculture. Weather stations cover a short time span of instrumental data in Iran. To overcome this challenge, tree rings can be used to put recent climate trends in a long-term context of climate variability. The central Zagros Mountains are one of the most important sites of oak forest in west of Iran. However, tree-ring based climate reconstructions are still scarce for this country. In this study, we present a reconstruction of temperature variations in the central Zagros Mountains using Quercus infectoria and Quercus persica tree rings over the last 250 years (1750-2010).

Introduction: One of the most important public health threats in the world today, is driving accidents and Iran is among the countries that in driving accidents and loss of life is huge. While 90 to 95 percent of road accidents are caused by human factors. Risky driving behaviors, the second leading cause of death and the first cause of years of life lost due top re-mature death and disability in iran considered. Meanwhile, some of the driver personality characteristics have an important share in intensifying or weakening of risky driving behaviors that most important of them are sensation seeking, angry, aggressive and has -mental health. The purpose of this paper is to present the realism descriptive of risky driving behavior in Mashhad, with a focus on the four personality characteristic, identify processes of risky driving intensifying or weakening.

Introduction: The natural phenomenon events are involved with several natural and unnatural factors that play a specific role in it event. Landslides, is example of such natural phenomena that resulted from interaction of various factors. Understanding the impact and weight of each factor by mathematical models can be solution for landslide study in term of zonation and extraction. Landslides are one of the natural hazards which may cause damage to some infrastructures such rail roads, dams, and roads, but also leads to casualties. The landslides hazard Zonation in the study area has been done in this study by using the two models namely frequency ratio model (RF) and functions of the fuzzy model over the Arc GIS 10 software. The final LHZ maps were comparing for evaluated the ideal landslides hazard zonation models.

Introduction: Desertification Phenomena is a critical problem in dry climates. everglades, playas and shallow lakes are the main landscapes in the closed basins of Iran, which are formed under tectonic and climatic influences during the Pleistocene and Holocene periods. Duo to climate changes, lack of precipitation, human activity and mismanagement of water resources, entering water has been reduced and caused seasonally or permanently dryness. The drought led to deposition of dissolved salt minerals and the pond has turned into the desert. Meghan is drained catchment area of approximately 5,528 square kilometres, which has been faced to water reduction and desertification phenomena. This study was performed to investigate spreading of desert in the Meghan everglade. Meghan wetland is located in the northeast of Arak in Farahan plain. Its area is range from about 100 to 110 square kilometres. Meghan basin is made along the fault lines and its water is salty. Its height is 1,660m above sea level and is composed of two parts: the mountainous area and the sediment plain.

Introduction: Nowadays, the vulnerability of human’s dwellings to the natural disasters has been steadily increasing as the results of the population centralisation. Economic activities in vast and dense regions and disorganised and irregular conditions of dwellings in which the low-income dwellers of urban and rural areas live. The scale of damage caused by a crisis is not only related to its destructiveness power but largely to the quality of infrastructural structures exposed to the incident. With respect to the size, population and economic, political and social importance of Isfahan and potential and actual threats, the vulnerability of the city dwellings to the natural disasters crisis is completely tangible and evidence when compared with equipment and facilities corresponding the world standards, population threshold features and the range of various dangers. The aim of this article is to identify and prioritize the dwellings vulnerability indices in Isfahan’s 14-fold zones. The spatial domain of this survey is the 14-fold zones of Isfahan based on the following hypothesis: Dose the structural architecture of Isfahan dwellings have a suitable performance against the natural disasters crisis? What are the initial zones and indices need to be considered?