Relationships of Habitat Quality to Characteristics of Soil, Topography, and Landscape Features Across Qeshlagh Dam Watershed in Western Iran

This research investigates the relationships between habitat quality, soil characteristics, topography and landscape metrics across soil zones and sub-basins of the Qeshlagh dam in western Iran. InVEST software was applied to determine habitat quality while soil characteristics were interpolated through the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method using ArcGIS software. The results revealed that the higher habitat quality throughout the Qeshlagh basin is distributed on upland including northern and eastern parts and also western strips of the basin. Dense urban land use and agricultural development were amongst the factors for declining habitat quality in central and southern parts of the study area. Statistical analysis showed that there are significant relationships of habitat quality to characteristics of soil, topography and landscape features throughout soil zones and sub-basins while the scale of sampling may impact the results. Also, it was emphasized that the habitat quality is influenced by the landscape pattern. In this regard cohesiveness of the largest landscape spot was highly influential. It is suggested that land management pathways regarding the rate and magnification of the degradation of the habitat quality should be considered and urgent conservative measures need to be applied to improve habitat quality across the basin.