تلفیق نقشهسازی آلودگی هوا در برنامهریزی کاربری اراضی نمونة پژوهش: شهرستان مبارکه

Abstract

Extended Abstract: Introduction: Unplanned urban expansion related to population growth, economic development, and rural migration to urban areas has led to unsustainable urban, industrial, and agricultural development. One reason is that spatial planning faces various social, economic, and political challenges that hinder proper structural development. Air pollution has emerged as a prominent threat to human health especially in developing countries; therefore, in several studies, unsuitable land use planning was determined as the main factor of air pollution. However, sometimes a new development takes place in an area affected by air pollution. In this case, even if the land use assessment process is accurately implemented with traditional criteria and without considering air pollution, there would be no rational arrangement for sustainable development. Despite these issues, the air pollution criteria have been mostly ignored in land use assessment studies. The west of the Isfahan region, especially Mobarakeh County, is one of the major spots for agricultural and industrial activities in Iran due to the favorable climatic conditions and the presence of the Zayandehrood River as a water source. This area is also the location of mega industries that include Mobarakeh Steel and Isfahan Steel factories. Accordingly, Mobarakeh County has been constantly affected by various air pollutant factors such as PM10 and NOX caused by these large industrial factories. The existence of agricultural and industrial land uses caused various contradictions between them and urban land use. The criterion of air quality should be considered in urban planning because the residents’ health is one of the most important priorities of any region. Therefore, this study aimed to provide a methodology to include the air pollution criteria in the process of land use planning for agricultural, urban, and industrial land uses. Accordingly, the authors conducted the land use planning in two scenarios ‘with’ and ‘without’ considering the air pollution. Finally, we prioritized the optimal areas for the sustainable development of the region. Methodology: In this study, to evaluate the suitable area for zoning activity (including the agricultural, industrial, and urban), we considered the physical and the ecological criteria with the air pollution ones (including the distribution of PM10 and NOX). Two scenarios were developed as with/without consideration of air pollution criterion. The optimal land use planning was applied for agricultural, urban, and industrial land uses. PM10 and NOX annual dispersion maps were used as air pollution criteria which were simulated by the AERMOD model. Standardization and weighting of the physical, ecological, and socio-economic criteria of the land uses were implemented using the AHP model. Then, to combine the factors, a weighted linear combination technique was applied. The values of this technique ranged from 0 to 1. In this map, higher values represent more desirable areas. After producing six maps from WLC, the suitable areas for each of the zones were combined separately with and without considering the air pollution using the Multi-Objective Land Allocation (MOLA) method. The MOLA method is a multi-purpose method that tries to allocate each land unit to the most appropriate land use. Finally, the optimal land use was selected using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach. Its primary theory is that the preferred option should have the lowest distance from the ideal solution and the farthest from the unpropitious ideal solution.   Discussion: The findings of the study confirmed that considering air pollution criteria is helping the zoning of the suitable areas and can change the planning strategies for the development of land use. However, the comparison of the two scenarios showed that nearly 73% of agricultural, 85% of industrial, and 64% of urban areas have remained unchanged in both scenarios. Therefore, 27% of the agricultural land area (292 hectares), 15% of the industrial land area (165 hectares), and 36% of the urban land area (393 hectares) were, in fact, unsuitable for development, which was deemed appropriate due to the lack of air pollution criteria in the traditional approach to land use planning. The 2432 hectares of land use included 802 hectares of agricultural areas, 929 hectares of industrial lands, and 701 hectares of urban areas will not change if the air pollution criteria were considered or not considered. As a result, considering four different land uses (agricultural, urban, industrial, and lands without use) for Mobarakeh county, a maximum of 16 different modes of conversion of land uses to each other can be expected, which just ten conversions identified in the study area and no conflicting conversions in these conversions. As a result, the selection of suitable areas for urban areas compared to other land uses is more impressed by air pollution criteria. On the other hand, more stability of industrial lands is related to the fact that the permissible air pollution levels for this land use were different from the other lands. The reason for these changes was twofold: first, the inadmissibility of air pollution limit for each land use; second, the allocation of suitable areas in terms of air pollution in which there was the minimum health effect. Conclusion: The purpose of this study was to evaluate suitable sites for developing land uses as well as agricultural, industrial, and urban towards achieving sustainable development in one of the most significant places in terms of the environment. According to the results of this study, to evaluate the potential of agricultural, industrial, and urban land uses, in addition to traditional criteria, air pollution criteria such as PM10 and NOX should be considered.   Keywords: AERMOD, Evaluation, GIS, MOLA, Mobarakeh County.