Quality of soil MAPs for different land uses is affected by variability of soils in the MAP units. Thus, accuracy of procedures used for crop recommendation would be questionable. This study was conducted for statistical evaluation of the procedure presented by Sys et al. (1991) for land SUITABILITY evaluation in Farrokhshahr area, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. Results from thirty-one pedon in a selected detailed MAP unit were compared with the results obtained from representative pedon. Purity of SUITABILITY class was 16.1 and 24% at series and phases of series levels, respectively. According to cluster analysis, considering land indices, similar to that of the reference pedon, purity improves to 32.2 and 48%. These results also indicate that the use of land SUITABILITY class, because of its extended range and generalization of evaluation results derived from reference profile to the whole land unit, can be miss-leading considerably. For this reason, it is advised to take care in the interpretation of the results, at least when the SUITABILITY of a land is at the vicinity of the evaluated class indices. Also, due to low purity in soil MAP units, the use of this method in the level upper than phases of series level and also precision agriculture is not recommended. Combined new techniques like geostatistics, GIS and RS can be used to improve soil Sampling and MAPping methods.  

The role of shepherds in maintaining, managing and distributing livestock in rangelands is very important. Flock guidance plays a major role in the distribution of grazing and livestock performance in rangelands. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the existing spatial system and it is clear to what extent livestock are given in appropriate places according to ecological criteria and indices. The present study was conducted to evaluate the role of shepherds in herding and distribution of livestock (sheep) and its adaptation to rangeland SUITABILITY MAP. Record of movement of livestock in different months of the grazing season by GPS and its adaptation to rangeland SUITABILITY MAP which is led by shepherds in areas where the limitations of forage production and sometimes, the sensitivity of soil to erosion, have little value for why. Therefore, the hypothesis of the study that shepherd does not play an effective role in the distribution of livestock on the basis of rangeland merit is confirmed and given that shepherds have given the animals in places where they have little merit for why, it is concluded that the spatial system in the rangelands of the region is not efficient. Therefore, the use of new technologies such as GPS and electrical fences along with native knowledge in order to properly control the herd and reduce the burden of livestock grazing in the areas that are not based on ecological criteria and indicators, do not have the necessary merit, is suggested.

Carum carvi is a native species that is widely used in various medicinal, food, health, and cosmetic industries. In this study, the MaxEnt model was used to investigate the ecological factors affecting the establishment and distribution of Carum carvi and to prepare a MAP of its habitat SUITABILITY in Alamout Sharghi Rangelands (2019). To model the MAP, 19 environmental variables and information on the presence points of the species were prepared and entered into MAXENT software. Evaluation of the model results was obtained at 95% using AUC, which indicates the high accuracy of the model results. According to the results, C. carvi species prefers to grow in the altitude range of 1000 to 2700 meters, with lime of soil 14 to 25 percent, rainfall 400 to 500 mm, soil acidity 7.7-7.8, sand of soil about 35 percent, clay of soil 20 to 40 percent in Alamout Sharghi region. The probability of the presence of this species increases to 80% with the increase of soil organic matter from 0.5% to 2% and the probability of the presence of C. carvi species reaches 100% with the increase of silt of soil from 4 to 25%. Among the micronutrients, C. carvi showed a better response to increasing potassium. The variables of range direction, soil acidity, and sodium (Bio2, Bio15, and Bio14, respectively) were the least important environmental variables in the jackknife test. This basin has almost all geographical directions due to its mountainous nature. The acidity of the soil in this basin is 7.6-7.8 (almost neutral) and the amount of sodium in the soil is also negligible. The results of this study are used for domestication and cultivation of this plant in lands with similar habitat conditions for its widespread use and commercialization of its products.

Evaluation of groundwater hydro chemical characteristics is necessary for planning and water resources management in terms of quality. In the present study, a self-organizing MAP (SOM) clustering technique was used to recognize the homogeneous clusters of hydro chemical parameters in water resources (including well, spring and qanat) of Kerman province; then, the quality classification of groundwater samples was investigated for drinking and irrigation uses by employing SOM clusters. Patterns of water quality parameters were visualized by SOM planes, and similar patterns were observed for those parameters that were correlated with each other, indicating a same source. Based on the SOM results, the 729-groundwater samples in the study area were grouped into 4 clusters, such that the clusters 1, 2, 3, and 4 contained 73%, 6. 2%, 6. 7%, and 14. 1% of groundwater samples, respectively. The increase order of electrical conductivity parameter in the clusters was as 1, 4, 3 and 2. The results of water quality index based on the entropy weighting (EWQI) showed that all of the samples with excellent and good quality (36. 3% of samples) for drinking belonged to the cluster 1. According to the Wilcox diagram, 435-groundwater samples (81. 7%) in the cluster 1 had the permitted quality for irrigation activities, and the other 285-groundwater samples were placed in all four clusters, indicating the unsuitable quality for irrigation. The Piper diagram also revealed that the dominant hydro chemical faces of cluster 1 were Na-Cl, Mixed Ca-Mg-Cl and Ca-HCO3, whereas the clusters 2, 3, and 4 had the Na-Cl face. This study, therefore, shows that the SOM approach can be successfully used to classify and characterize the groundwater in terms of hydrochemistry and water quality for drinking and irrigation purposes on a provincial scale.

The quality of soil MAPs depends upon their ability to show the soils variability. Thus, the accuracy of the MAPs used for crop recommendations is due to the accuracy of soil MAPs. This study was performed to investigate the amount of soil properties and crop yield spatial variability in S2 and S3 units of a semi-detailed quantitative SUITABILITY MAP (1:50000 scale) for irrigated wheat in Shahr-e-Kian area, Chaharmahal-Va-Bakhtiari province. Eighty soil samples were collected in each land unit at 0-30 cm depth using multi-scale sampling method to determine available P, K, total N, %O.M., %CaCO3 equivalent, soil texture and particle size distribution, EC and pH. A 0.5×0.5 m plot of wheat was harvested at each of 160 sites previously sampled to determine crop biomass, 1000 seeds weight and harvest index. The highest CV was related to available potassium (47.43 for S2 and 46.46 for S3 units, respectively) and the lowest one was related to pH (1.07 for S2 and 0.925 for S3 units, respectively). Variography showed a good spatial structure for all variables in both land units. Ranges for variograms were from 17.75 for N to 61.06 m for EC in S2 unit and from 17.47 for P to 62.93 m for 1000 seeds weight in S3 unit. Kriging MAPs showed high spatial variability of soil properties as well as biomass, wheat yield and harvest index within two land units. This indicates that SUITABILITY MAPs have not enough credibility for precision agriculture. Using information of all pedons as well as representative pedons in land units and combining the information of SUITABILITY MAPs with geostatistical data can be a choice way to improve the accuracy and quality of land SUITABILITY MAPs.

Urban Physical development has been the major concern of urban planners during recent years, therefore, better understanding of urban and its development is necessary for sustainable development. Urban physical development resulted to destroying Agricultural lands, moving to hazardous areas like flooding areas, hazardous earthquake areas, unreliable slopes which in fact damages ecological balance and sustainability in cities. Shiraz, as an example, shows that urban physical development due to rapid growth of population and lack of ecological and environmental considerations results in development of city to hazardous ecological and natural areas. This research is to answer following question: Is physical development of Shiraz city happened toward natural hazardous areas and occurred in farmlands and gardens during 1956-2006? The aim of this research is remarking which areas developed in natural and environmental vulnerable area. Urban sustainability means ecological-physical balance which considers natural and environmental urban physical development. Analysis of these variables was performed by linear combination technique with regard to information structure and its ability to be used in computer systems. After choosing ecological and topographical criteria like slope, height, dangerous earthquake areas and farmland were graded by linear combination. Then, these criteria were analyzed and combined by ArcGIS software tools. The results showed that from the total area of the city, 38. 6 percent are unfavorable zones, 38. 5 percent lower zones and only 22. 8 percent comprises the appropriate zone. This situation indicates that the environmental SUITABILITY of Shiraz city is low.