Journal of Spatial Analysis

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Zoning and Spatial Analysis of Potential Environmental Hazards
Case study: Silvana District
Abstract
Natural hazards can be considered as one of the most important threats to humankind and nature that can occur anywhere in the world. Natural hazards are one of the main obstacles to sustainable development in different countries and one of the important indicators of the development of world countries is their readiness to deal with natural hazards. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to it and appropriate measures should be taken to reduce the vulnerability of human settlements. Nowadays with increasing population growth, population dynamics and the large number of people exposed to various types of disasters, the need to identify environmental potential hazards and identification of hazardous areas are felt more and more. Meantime, some people may not be aware of potential hazards of their place of residence. So by identifying and evaluating potential hazards and their Risks before the occurrence, we can significantly reduce the severity of the damages and contribute to sustainable regional development. The negative effects of natural disasters can be minimized by the availability of comprehensive and useful information from different areas and Multihazard mapping is one of the most effective tools in this regard.
According to the above mentioned, in this study, the spatial analysis of potential hazards in Silvana district in Urmia County has been studied. This study area due to specific geographic conditions such as position, complexity of topographic and ecological structures, in general, the existence of environmental factors for hazards has been selected as the study area. There have been a number of hazards in the past and assessing of this area is necessary, because of the lack of previous studies. For this purpose, by reviewing various reports and doing field observations, three hazards including Flood, Landslide, and Earthquake are identified as potential hazards of the study area.
For assessing hazards, 12 factors in 6 clusters such as Slope, Aspect (Topographic factors), Lithology, Soil type, Distance to Faults (Geological factors) Precipitation (Climatological factors), River Network Density, Groundwater Resources (Hydrological factors), Land use, Distance to Roads (Human factors), Observed Landslide Density and Seismicity (Historical factors) as the research factors has been selected. For weighting factors, Analytic Network Process (ANP) Method in Super Decisions 2.6.0 software environment has been used. The results of the analysis show that Slope (0.201), Precipitation (0.161), Lithology (0.112), Distance to Faults (0.106), Land use (0.096), Rivers (0.078), Seismicity (0.06), Soil Type (0.055), Landslide Density (0.047), Aspect (0.033), Groundwater (0.03) and Distance to Roads (0.016), Respectively have maximum to minimum relative weight. Then, weighted maps are standardized with using FUZZY functions. For this purpose, Fuzzy membership functions such as Linear, Large and Small has been selected based on each factor. For some factors such as Slope, Aspect, Lithology, Soil type, Rivers density, Land use, Seismicity and Landslide density, Fuzzy linear function has been used. For some others such as Groundwater and Precipitation, Fuzzy large function has been used and for distance to Faults and distance to Roads, Fuzzy small function has been used. Finally, weighted maps were overlay in ArcGIS 10.4.1 environment with Fuzzy Gamma 0.9 operator and potential hazards zoning maps is obtained.
Final results indicate that major parts in the Northwest, West and South of the study area located in high risk zones and 59 percent of the total area exposed to high risk. Based on hazard zoning maps, 44 percent of the area exposed to Flooding, 48 percent exposed to Landslide and 44 percent exposed to Earthquake. Also, 61 percent of the population or 37394 people exposed to one hazard, 7 percent or 3817 people exposed to two hazard and 8 percent or 4914 people exposed to three hazard. According to surveys, only 21 percent of the study area is considered as a low risk area but that does not mean that environmental hazards will never happen in these areas. In general, and based on results, it is concluded that Silvana district has a high potential for environmental hazards. Final results of the research show that potential hazards identifying and preparation of hazard zoning maps can be very useful in reducing damages and achieving sustainable regional development. Therefore, considering the ability of hazard zoning maps to identify areas exposed to risk and assess the type of potential hazards, These analyzes should be considered as one of the most appropriate and useful tools in different stages of crisis management that can be the solution to many problems in preventing and responding to natural disasters and therefore, it is recommended that they be used in the crisis management process.
Keywords: Spatial Analysis, Environmental Hazards, Silvana, ANP Method, Risk
 

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The Spatio-Temporal Variations of Aerosol Concentration Using Remote Sensing in Sistan and Baluchestan Province (2018 - 2000)
 
 
 
Abstract
Atmospheric particles play an important role in balancing the energy budget of the Earth's surface. The Sistan and Baluchestan province because of the specific geographical conditions during the year is witnessing the spread of dust particles caused by dust storms. This paper investigates the spatial changes of this phenomenon in the region to identify the association of dust accumulation and the reasons for these concentrations. In this study, the AOD Index data of the Aqua and Terra Modis Satellite Sensor (MODAL2_M_AER_OD) with 10 × 10 km spatial resolution were used. Then, by using statistical methods, a spatial analysis was done and the temporal and spatial changes trends at 95% and 99% significance level were performed using the nonparametric Mann-Kendall method. The results showed that the maximum concentration of aerosol in areas such as Zabol, Zahak, Hirmand, Hamoun, Iranshahr, Bampour, Jazmurian basin, Chabahar, and Konarak. On average, the highest variations in aerosol concentration were in the southern regions of the province include Dashtiari, Polan, and Chabahar, and the least in the northern part of Polan, Chabahar, Konark, and Bampour areas. The trend of changes was evaluated at two significant levels of 95 and 99%. The results of this section showed that the AOD had a positive and increasing trend in June, July, and August in the areas of Dalgan, Iranshahr, Bampour, Bazman, Mirjaveh, Nokabad, Zahedan, Nosratabad, Zaboli, Qasrqand, Irandegan, and Sib-va-Soran Plain and areas such as Korin, Zabol, Zahak, Sirkan (Bamposht), Hamoun have a negative and decreasing trend. The average changes in aerosol concentration in June, July, and August show a significant increase in the aerosol concentration from 2015 to 2018 up to 0.8.
 
Keywords: Environmental Changes, Dust, Environmental Hazards, Climate.

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One of the causes of environmental hazards is the change in the pattern of surface water flow in floodplains following the construction of flood Spreading networks. The purpose of this study is to prepare a zoning map of vulnerable areas of the flood Spreading station of Musian plain  in Ilam province after the implementation of the aquifer project in this plain. To prepare this map, five factors influencing the change in flow pattern including elevation, slope, flow direction, geological formations, and landuse change were examined. Then, in the GIS environment, each class of the mentioned factors was given a score of zero to 10 based on the range and the corresponding weight layers were created. Then, by combining the created weight layers, the vulnerability zoning map of the area was created based on 5 classes: very low, low, medium, high and very high. The results showed that the most important threat and danger factor is the concentration of waterways behind erosion-sensitive embankments. Also, the study area in terms of vulnerability includes three classes with medium risk, high and very high and covers 16, 62 and 22% of the area, respectively. Flood and upland Spreading areas, risk areas and lowland lands are the most vulnerable parts of the basin in terms of floods and sedimentary deposits.

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Risk modeling of plant species diversity and extinction in Sorkheh_hesar National Park
 
Zahra Mosaffaei¹, Ali Jahani^2*, ³MohammadAli ZareChahouki, ⁴Hamid GoshtasbMeygoni, ⁵Vahid Etemad
 
¹ Masters of Natural Resources Engineering, Environmental Sciences, College of Environment, Karaj
^*2Associate Professor, Department of Natural Environment and Biodiversity, College of Environment, Karaj.
³ Professor, Department of Restoration of arid and mountainous regions, University of Tehran, Karaj
⁴ Associate Professor, Department of Natural Environment and Biodiversity, College of Environment, Karaj
⁵ Associate Professor, Department of Forestry and Forest Economics, University of Tehran, Karaj
 
 
Abstract
Full identification of hazards and prioritizing them for non-harm to nature is one of the first steps in natural resource management. Therefore, introducing a comprehensive system of evaluation, understanding, and evaluation is essential for controlling hazards. This study aimed to model and predict environmental hazards following increased degradation in natural environments by ANN. Thus, 600 soil and vegetation samples were collected from inhomogeneous ecological units. Soil samples were prepared by strip transect method according to soil depth in four profiles (5, 10, 15, 20 cm). Vegetation samples were also collected using a minimum level method using 2 2 square plots according to the type, density, and distribution of vegetation. Sampling was done in two safe zones and other uses were modeled using ANN in MATLAB environment. The optimal model of multilayer perceptron with two hidden layers, sigmoid tangent function and 19 neurons per layer and coefficient of determination of 0.90. The results of sensitivity analysis showed that soil moisture content would be effective in decreasing biodiversity and flood risk as well as increasing the risk of extinction of endemic species in the region, and then the apparent and true gravity and soil porosity and distance from the road play a key role in the degradation of cover. Vegetation has increased flooding and extinction risk. Therefore, it is recommended that measures related to soil and vegetation restoration in this park be taken to reduce future damages as soon as possible.
 
Keywords: Modeling, Artificial Neural Network, Environmental Hazards, National Park, Vegetation
 

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Abastract
Introduction
Road accidents is the outcome of driver behavior, road condition, vehicle status, and environmental factors. Therefore, identification and assessment of effective parameters on road accidents can be considered as an appropriate way to reduce the accident events, driving violations and increase the road safety. Determining the effects of meteorological factors on the road accident events has gained more attention in recent years.
  The The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the number of road accidents and the meteorological variables in the intercity road of Grmi-Ardabil in the Barzand route.
Methodology:
In this regard, the effects of climatic factors (including rainfall amount, the minimum absolute temperature, and the number of frost days) on the frequency of perilous events were analyzed. The data of accident events (in recent 4 years) were obtained from the trooper department of Ardabil Province along with the meteorological parameters of Germi station through a 11-year period. The statistical tests were performed using R programming software through statistical analysis.
Findings and Discussion:
The results showed that the majority of accidents were occurred in winter season which is in consistent with the frequency of frost days and also corresponded to the absolute minimum temperature. According to the results, the highest significant positive correlation at (R²= 0.43) was observed between the number of injured people and frost days. In addition, the relationship between the absolute minimum temperature and the number of were identified as significant negative correlation.
Conclusion:
As a concluding remark, the poor road conditions caused by climate element can be considered increasing the frequency of accident events. Accordingly, the proper strategies related to behavior change could be
considered in setting the rules and regulations to reduce the accidents and the number of injuries.

Keywords: Climatic hazards, Correlation analysis, Frost days, Minimum absolute temperature, Germi-Ardabil road


 

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Considering the increase in housing construction in developing societies such as Iran, it is necessary to address the issue of reducing construction accidents, especially in metropolises, and related safety measures with the help of emerging technologies. Therefore, the main goal of the current research is to investigate the use of Internet of Things to monitor and control high-risk points in order to reduce accidents and improve safety in the spaces of construction site in Tehran.
In this applied research, first, a library study was conducted regarding the concept and application of Internet of Things in the safety field of the construction industry. Then, high risk points and activities were identified. After that, in the field study phase, this list was corrected and completed by 52 competent building safety consultants. After that, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with safety experts and knowledgebale in the field of IoT. Therefore, effective solutions based on Internet of Things were extracted to control and monitor high risk points. Also, in this regard, the current situation and required platforms were explained from the aspects of technology, organization, cost and outsourcing.
In fact, the main findings of this research, in the form of a conceptual model, show that paying attention to the stages of choosing the incident, choosing the desired point and activity, determining the appropriate solution for the determined situation (monitoring the amount of movement and health of the structure, monitoring the proximity of flammable materials with other materials, monitoring the proximity of people and machines and preventing the continuation of movement and determining the limits around the openings) and checking the required platforms (infrastructure, support, accreditation, culture, budget, employers and law), respectively, in order to design and implement IoT-based safety systems in the spaces of construction sites is vital.

 

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Spatial analysis models provide a single model and solution to solve various problems in the field of study, one of the applications of these models is in measuring urban risks. In recent years, with the occurrence of various crises in urban communities, the urban management system and development plans are seeking access to models of prevention and dealing with these crises. The purpose of this research is to review the literature about the use of spatial analysis models in measuring urban risks in a meta-analytical way, so this research is conducted by reviewing and summarizing foreign articles (research statistical community) in relation to this issue in order to identify, analyze and Analyzing and summarizing the solutions of the investigated backgrounds.
The statistical population is discussed with four standard criteria of spatial analysis, including description and identification of hazard dispersion, hazard dispersion argument, interpolation, and spatial planning. The statistical population is research, studies, and articles indexed in Sciencdirect, Willey, Web of Science databases in the period 2021-2000. Out of 99 articles, 78 articles have been selected and analyzed by screening method according to research objectives and indicators. The analysis was performed in two ways: descriptive statistics in SPSS software and inferential statistics in CMA2 comprehensive meta-analysis software.
The results indicate that in the component of hazard dispersion descriptions, most of the researches in their used models have not been able to provide a tangible and appropriate general description, but in the three components of hazard dispersion, interpolation, and spatial planning of urban hazards based on score The average effect size, the applied models used in the research, have been able to provide a proper justification and tangible results with the applied model of spatial analysis in their studies.
 

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Explaining the spatial patterns of drought intensities in Iran

Abstract
Recognition of spatial patterns of drought plays an important role in monitoring, predicting, confronting, reducing vulnerability, and increasing adaptation to this hazard. This study aims to identify the spatial distribution and analyze the spatial patterns of annual, seasonal, and monthly drought intensities in Iran. For this purpose, the European center Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) data for the period 1979-2021 and the ZSI index were used to extract the drought intensities. To achieve the research goal and explain the spatial pattern of the frequency of drought intensities (Extreme, severe, moderate, and weak), spatial statistical methods such as global Moran’s I, Anselin local Moran’s Index, and hot spots were used. The results of the global Moran’s I showed that with increasing intensity, the spatial distribution of drought events has become clustered. The spatial distribution of the local Moran’s Index and hot spots also confirms this. Very clear contrast was observed in the local clusters of high (low) occurrence as well as hot (cold) spots of severe (Extreme) yearly droughts in the south, southeast, and east. In autumn, weak to Extreme droughts show a southeast-northwest pattern. But in spring and winter, the spatial pattern of drought is very strong as opposed to severe and moderate drought. Despite the relatively high variability of maximum positive spatial Autocorrelation of severe and Extreme monthly droughts, their spatial pattern is almost similar. The spatial clusters of severe and very severe droughts in the northwest, northeast, and especially on the Caspian coast, are a serious warning for the management of water resources, especially for precipitation-based activities, such as agriculture.
Introduction
Drought or lack of precipitation over some time is the most widespread natural hazard on the earth compared to its long-term average. This risk negatively affects various sectors such as hydropower generation, health, industry, tourism, agriculture, livestock, environment, and economy. To reduce these negative or destructive effects, it must be determined how often drought occurs during the period and in which areas it is most severe. Doing so requires determining the characteristics of the drought. These characteristics include area, intensity, duration, and frequency of drought. Discovering the geographical focus, recognizing the pattern governing the frequency of occurrence and temporal-spatial distribution as well as changes in the dynamics of this hazard facilitate an important role in drought monitoring, early warning, forecasting, and dealing with these potential hazards; this information can be used to create a drought plan by providing analysts and decision-makers with ideas about drought, helping to reduce the negative and vulnerable effects and ultimately make it easier to protect or replace for greater adaptation. Many researchers have been led by these approaches to the use of statistical analysis. Numerous studies have been conducted in the study of climatic phenomena such as drought with space statistics techniques in various regions, including China, India, South Korea, and even Iran. Part of the domestic research on spatial patterns of drought is without the use of spatial statistics and a limited number of others who have used these analyzes have only studied the overall intensity of drought and have not studied the spatial patterns of different drought intensities. The main purpose of this study is to identify the distribution and spatial patterns of drought intensities in Iran using spatial analysis functions of spatial statistics based on the frequency of drought intensities (Extreme, severe, moderate, and weak) with yearly, seasonal and monthly multi-scale approach. Therefore, this study will answer the questions: a) What is the spatial distribution of drought intensity data in Iran? And b) What is the variability of spatial patterns of Iranian droughts at different time scales?
Material &Method
ERA5 monthly precipitation data for a period of 43 years from 1979 to 2021 were used for this study. an array of dimensions of 78×59×504 of data were formed in MATLAB software in which 78×59 is the number of nodes with a spatial resolution of 0.25 degrees and 504 represents the month. After creating the database, the ZSI index was used to calculate the severity of drought in annual, seasonal, and monthly comparisons. Finally, to achieve the research goal and explain the spatial pattern governing the frequency of drought intensities (Extreme, severe, moderate, and weak), spatial statistical methods such as global Moran’s I, Anselin local Moran I and hot spots was used.
Discussion of Results
Due to its ecological conditions, geographical location, and location in an arid and semi-arid region of the world, Iran is among the most vulnerable countries due to natural hazards, including drought. It has experienced many severe droughts in the last century. The occurrence of drought and its effects is one of the major challenges of water resources management in this century. The results of the Global Moran’s Index for all three annual, seasonal, and monthly scales showed a highly clustered pattern of drought events in the country. Spatial clustering of the occurrence of severe and Extreme yearly droughts in the eastern, southeastern, and southern regions is also an interesting result. These conditions are due to low precipitation and high spatial variation coefficient in these areas. This contrast of spatial clusters of drought intensities indicates the relationship between drought and temporal-spatial anomalies of precipitation so that with increasing precipitation, spatial variability of precipitation decreases, and consequently spatial homogeneity of precipitation increases. severe and moderate-intensity spots in the south-southeast in autumn and spring can be affected by fluctuations in the beginning and end of the monsoon season in South Asia due to the high variability of atmospheric circulation at the beginning and end of precipitation in these areas. Some studies have also shown the relationship between precipitation in these areas and the monsoon behavior of South Asia. Extreme drought events in winter and spring have had a positive spatial correlation pattern in the southwest, west, and northwest. However, precipitation at this time of year is concentrated in these areas. Warm clusters or concentrations of very severe drought events in the northern strip of the country, especially in the Caspian region, can be due to the high variability of precipitation at the beginning of the annual precipitation season (late summer and early autumn).  Observations of these conditions in the northern strip indicate that an event with a high frequency of severe droughts, even in rainy areas, should not be unexpected. Spatial clusters of Extreme, severe, moderate, and weak drought every month using both local Moran and hot spots statistics show the fact that in Iran, the most severe droughts have occurred in the western, northwestern, and coastal areas of the Caspian Sea. However, the absence of severe droughts or spatial clusters has been the occurrence of low drought in the southeast and to some extent in the south. On a yearly scale, the south, southeast, and east have played a significant role in the spatial cluster of severe and extreme droughts. So that these areas of the country have had positive spatial solidarity. However, in these areas, negative spatial correlation prevailed in the autumn for severe drought. This may indicate an anomaly and a tendency to concentrate more precipitation in Iran, as well as many changes in seasonal and local precipitation regimes. According to the research results, a high incidence of severe and extreme drought on all three scales (monthly, seasonal and annual) even in the wettest climate of the country (northern Iran, especially the southern shores of the Caspian Sea) shows that High-intensity droughts can occur in all parts of the country, regardless of the weather conditions.
Keywords: Natural hazards, spatial patterns, Moran statistics, spatial autocorrelation, hot spots


 

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Extended abstract
Landslide risk zoning is one of the basic measures to deal with and reduce the effects of landslides. Vernesara watershed is one of the areas where many landslides have been observed in different parts of it. In this research, in order to zone the risk of landslides using the entropy index, first the ranges of landslides were determined, then the effective factors in the occurrence of range movements were prepared in the ArcGIS software environment, and a landslide susceptibility map of the studied area was prepared. . The prioritization of effective factors using Shannon's entropy index showed that the slope layers, land use, surface curvature, topographic humidity index and topographic position index had the greatest effect on the occurrence of landslides in the region. Also, zoning landslide sensitivity with the mentioned model and evaluating its accuracy using the ROC curve shows the very good accuracy of the model (79.6 percent) with a standard deviation of 0.0228 for the studied area. The zoning map shows that the low-risk areas cover only 13% of the area and more than 56% of the area is in the area with high risk of landslides, which indicates the high potential of the area in the occurrence of landslides. . Construction at a distance from fault lines, waterways and the steep Asmari Formation and safety of communication routes are the most important measures to reduce the amount of damage caused by landslides in Vernesara watershed.
Key words: natural hazards, landslide, entropy, folded Zagros.
 

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