Modeling the spatial relationship between landscape services and vulnerability assessment.

ABSTRACT

Even though many studies have been thus far devoted to landscape services (LS) or vulnerability assessment (VA) alone, the relationship between these two concepts has been less investigated. The current study attempts to model the spatial relationship between LS and VA in the Tarhan area (west of Iran). For this purpose, a combination of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), remote sensing (RS), and geographic information system (GIS) techniques are applied to assess vulnerability. Variogram models and geostatistical simulations are used for mapping and evaluating landscape services. Moreover, the geographically weighted regression (GWR) is operated to predict the relationship between LS and VA. The results indicate that landform and socioeconomic variables are also two main factors shaping variations in VA. As well, the levels of services provided in the possible landscape are affected by the vulnerability. The assessment accordingly establishes that natural and cultural values have significant effects on services, in terms of their spatial distribution and nature. Exploring the relationship between LS and VA correspondingly depicts that VA has a direct influence on the capacity and entity of LS provision (adjusted R2 = 0.67). The outcomes of the study provide a foundation for nature management and conservation, although it is less able to analyze the trade-off between ecosystem degradation and future development trends. The nexus of LS and future ecological processes in an integrated system can be thus the subject of further research.