Ecological capability of rangelands based on environmental factors in Iranshahr, Iran

Rangelands are profoundly affected by climatic conditions, especially the ambient temperature. These ecosystems have a great role in the rural communities’ economy and sustaining. In this research, we aimed to analyze the ecological capabilities of the rangeland in southern Iran, Iranshahr, to find out the best strategies for lanuse planning. Makhdum Iranian model was the basic model which we used to classify the ecological capability of the target rangelands. The main factors which we used in the modeling process were altitude, terrain slope, precipitation, soil properties, and the area’s lithological peculiarities. All necessary input spatial data have been prepared using ArcGIS 10.2 and after weighting, they were classified again. The resulted ecological model constituted from three distinct areas where the northwestern part of the area covered the largest one where showed the highest ecological capacity.Meanwhile, some small parts located in the center, southeast, and southern parts also showed high capability. In contrast, the most of western, central, and southwestern parts were classified with low ecological capacity. The northern, east north to southeastern parts have been organized in moderate class.