The Impact of Urban Growth and Development Trend on Ecological Network Structure with Resilience and Landscape Approach (Case study of Hamedan)

Abstract

Urban development is an inevitable subject due to the increasing population growth in cities. The city consists of open and living systems and a combination of socio-ecological systems. On the one hand, the hurried process of urban growth resulted in the land use change. Subsequently, this manner will damage to the structure, yield, and ecological processes in each city. Meanwhile, the use of ecologic knowledge with the landscape and resilience approaches can help to analyze the present situation and discover the optimal solutions. The resilience in the pattern of the natural structure of the ecological networks depends on the extent and intensity of the green spots. This research was carried out to determine the vegetation changes in Hamadan city between1982 to 2015 to achieve the evaluation of the ecological network structure in the urban development process with a resilience approach. In this study, a conceptual framework derived from ecological knowledge, resilience ideas and the use of modern technologies, such as GIS and RS, was designed to determine the bio-sensitive areas caused by the substructure urban changes. Besides, this study was performed to preserve the remaining biological resources in this area and preventing damage to the natural ecosystem of this city. A series of satellite imagery was classified in four categories such as such as open area, built land, communication paths, vegetation. After the above classification, these maps were processed and analyzed by the TerrSet software and three types of landscape metrics including creating, loosening and separating were reviewed to identify the types of land use changes in these years. The results show that the vegetated area decreased from 2820.2 hectares in 1982 to 1304.2 hectares in 2015 and, on the other hand, built lands and communication paths were degraded from 606.4 hectares in 1982 to 4274.2 hectares in 2015. In general, it can be concluded that this level of change shows a high urban development, decreases in plant vegetation, and its discontinuation so that the above changes have reduced the resilience of the city's ecology network. At the end of the study, numerous strategies were also provided for the restoration of the entire damage in the natural ecological network of Hamadan and its development.