Background: Land use/land cover has long been considered for natural resource planning and management and remote sensing techniques are the best tools to produce land use/cover maps. There are various methods for preparing land use maps. Objective: The purpose of this study is to prepare a land cover map of Ghoorichay watershed using processing and classification of satellite images, which is one of the most important watersheds of Ardabil province. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, Landsat 8 satellite images related to June 2015 were classified using supervised maximum likelihood and fuzzy classification methods. Results: The results showed that rangelands, bare lands, dry lands, and residential lands (village) are the major land uses in the area, respectively. According to the results, maximum likelihood method with kappa coefficient of 0. 82 and overall accuracy of %88 is more accurate than fuzzy classification method with kappa coefficient of 0. 81 and overall accuracy of %87. Discussion and Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, despite the high capability of satellite images in the preparation of land use map, in order to increase the accuracy of classification, peripheral parameters should be used.

Ephemeral Gully (EG) erosion is one of the most destructive types of water erosion, which contributes significantly to land degradation. EG erosion prediction is necessary to assess the magnitude of soil loss and to implement the appropriate conservation measures. The aim of current study was to evaluate the efficiency of EGEM model for EG erosion prediction in Ghoorichay Watershed, Ardabil Province, Iran. For this purpose, a number of 17 EG erosion was identified and monitored between the years 2014 to 2016. The morphological characteristics and erosion rate of EGs were measured and recorded after seven effective rainfall events. In order to calculate the EG erosion, EGEM model requires four major categories of input data, including identification information, watershed data, soil data, and rainfall data. The model has two major components: hydrology and erosion. The runoff induced by a rainfall event in each gully catchment was determined by the Natural Recourses Conservation service (NRCS) Curve Number (CN). The result of EGEM model performance evaluation showed that the eroded soil volume and cross-section were predicted with a determination coefficient of 0. 96 and 0. 89, respectively. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the curve number was the most sensitive parameter, so that, with a 10% increasing and decreasing in CN, the volume of soil loss varied 22. 98 and-18. 92%, respectively. It can be concluded that EGEM model was suitable for event-based EG erosion prediction in Ghoorichay Watershed and it can be recommended for studying and planning on EGs in similar watersheds.

Background and Objective: In the present time, land use changes are being conducted without clear and logical programming or regarding the environmental effects of the changes. Because land use changes occur in a large scale, remote sensing technique is a useful and valuable tool for monitoring the changes. The aim of this research is investigation of the effects of land cover changes on rangelands of Ghoorichay chatchment located in the north of Ardabil province using remote sensing technique. Material and Methodology: In this investigation, TM images for year 1987, ETM images for year 2001 and OLI-TIRS images for year 2015 were collected and analyzed. After image pre-processing enhancements and corrections, the images were classified using maximum likelihood supervised classification method. Then, considering study area features, the images were classified into four land cover classes: dry land, range land, bare land and village. Moreover, NDVI index and slope layer were used to increase classification accuracy. At last, land cover changes and their effects on the range lands were detected. Overall accuracies and kappa coefficient were evaluated. Findings: According to the results, during the studied period, 5885 hectare (49. 7%) of study area had changed. The most land cover changes were related to range land with intensive decrease of 2540 hectares (21. 4%) which was changed into bare land and dry land. Discussion and Conclusion: Additional information such as slope layer and NDVI index in assistant with supervised classification of satellite images can increase the accuracy of image classification to provide land cover maps.

Background and Objective: Comments regarding futurism and portraying the future development lead trends in the field of planning and rational exploitation of resources. Ghoorichay is one of the catchments in the north of Ardabil province that has critical role in local people’ s livelihood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate ecological land capability and determine the suitability rate for agriculture and range activities in Ghoorichay catchment. Method: First, by reviewing of the sources, the agriculture capability evaluation criteria were defined. In the next step, all of the criteria were imported to the Geographic Information System (GIS) with the same format and were standardized. Then, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and binary comparison matrix were used to weight to the criteria and sub criteria and finally, all of the criteria were combined using Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method. Findings: Based on the results 9811/42 hectares (82/85%) for agricultural activity and 2-27/31 hectares (17/15%) for rangeland activity have potential. Discussion and Conclusion: According to the results, there is not a balanced relationship between current land uses and the land ecological capability for agriculture and range management in the study area.

The aims of this study are evaluation of water use management and water use efficiency of Yamchi pressurized irrigation and Ghoorichay low pressurized (hydroflume) canals, with total area 3885 ha and located in Ardabil plain. Annual relative irrigation supply, Annaual relative water supply, relative rainfall supply, water productivity and irrigation water productivity, as physical water use efficiency and parameters pure and impure benefit of water use efficiency and pure and impure benefit of irrigation water use efficiency as economic parameters were calculated. Results showed that, for four years of 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 mean of irrigation deficit of Yamchi and Ghoorichay canals were calculated 28 and 43 percentage, respectively. For three years of 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 mean of water productivity in Yamchi and Ghoorichay canals was calculated 1. 52 and 2. 15 kg/m3 and mean of irrigation water productivity was calculated 2. 16 and 4. 08kg/m3, respectively. Mean of water pure and impure benefit for Yamchi canal were estimated 987. 67 and 884. 67 toman/m3 and for Ghoorichay canal were estimated 4028 and 9100 toman/m3, respectively. Mean of irrigation water pure and impure benefit for Yamchi canal were estimated 12669, 1515. 33 toman/m3 and for Ghoorichay were estimated 23988. 33 and 6523. 33 toman/m3, respectively.