Road-induced fragmentation and the environmental value of roadless areas in a partly protected landscape in Central Iran

Road-induced fragmentation and the environmental value of roadless areas in a partly protected landscape in Central Iran

Authors

Niloofar Mehdipour, Sima Fakheran, Alireza Soffianian, Saeid Pourmanafi

Publication date

2019/7/1

Journal

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment

Volume

191

Issue

7

Pages

461

Publisher

Springer International Publishing

Description

This study assessed the effect of road development on vegetation fragmentation in and around a protected area network in western Isfahan Province, Central Iran. As the first study in Iran, an attempt was also made using the weighted linear combination–informed ecological value index of roadless area (EVIRA), to evaluate the environmental value of roadless areas based on a set of ecological and anthropogenic factors. Toward these aims, a Landsat 8-OLI image was processed to delineate land use/cover of the region. Road-induced fragmentation was then estimated by comparing the results of a small set of landscape metrics (DIVISION, SPLIT, MESH, LPI, and NP) measured from the original and road-included LULC map. The results showed road-induced increasing DIVISION (by 4.8–85.9%) and SPLIT (by 0.01–23.1%) and decreasing MESH (by 2.7–14%), LPI (by 1.3–32.4%), and NP (by 6–97.8%) values