Sima Fakheran, President of IALE-Iran, fakheran@cc.iut.ac.ir
Majid Makhdoum, University of Tehran, majidfmakhdoum@yahoo.com
Abdolrasoul Salman Mahiny, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sci. & Natural Resources, Rassoulmahiny@gmail.com
Hossein Moradi, Secretary General of IALE-Iran, hossein.moradi@cc.iut.ac.ir
Summary
Drylands cover approximately 40% of the world’s land area. Rapid landscape change has taken place in many semi-arid regions over the last decade. In addition, these areas face interactive effects of climate change and land use changes. This symposium, will help to advance landscape ecology research in the area of conservation planning, and regional land use planning in semi-arid areas and promote interdisciplinary research and communication among scientists, planners, and other professionals. The symposium will critically consider the question "Where are we with decision-relevant, landscape-scale land use planning, and conservation planning” and speakers will present attributes of various methodologies for semi-arid regions around the world.
Description
The increasing global demand for agricultural and other land uses creates conflict and trade-offs between dedicating land for conservation versus other human activities.
This symposium, will help to advance landscape ecology research in the area of conservation planning and regional land use planning in semi-arid areas and promote interdisciplinary research and communication among scientists, planners, and other professionals. We will invite scientists who conduct research in different parts of the world to provide their perspectives and case studies about the state of the art of science and practice on linking landscape ecology to conservation efforts and sustainable land use planning in semi-arid areas.
Researchers will focus on ways to reconcile results from landscape ecology, land use planning and conservation disciplines. Otherwise, huge recent efforts by the landscape ecologists will find no place for practical inclusion in land use planning and conservation planning decisions. Hence, an effort is made in this symposium to elucidate the commonalities and differences among some of the land use planning approaches to shed light on the possible ways of enriching land use planning results with those of landscape ecology analyses.
The symposium will critically consider the question "Where are we with decision-relevant, landscape-scale land use planning, and conservation planning” and speakers will present and then discuss attributes of various methodologies for a variety of semi-arid regions around the world.
Participants are invited to focus on the following issues:
- Linking landscape ecology to sustainable land use planning
- Conservation planning and protected areas network in semi-arid region
- Connectivity analysis
- Land evaluation and land use planning
- Incorporating climate change considerations in landscape planning
- Interactions among climatic drivers and human impacts in semi-arid areas
What can participants expect to learn?
Participants are expected to learn the possible ways of enriching land use planning results with those of landscape ecology analyses and how to apply various methodologies for sustainable landscape planning semi-arid regions.
The case studies of conservation planning and regional planning at multiple landscape scales and by a variety of stakeholders will be presented and will help participants to better understand how the diversity of goals, methods, and outcomes relates to landscape level decisions.
Impact
Integrating science of landscape ecology, with practice of land use and conservation planning, considering both sociocultural and biological conservation goals presents both opportunities and challenges, in systematic planning frameworks and will help for developing pragmatic linkages to decision-making.
Participants will discuss and evaluate conditions that foster progress toward linking land use planning with landscape ecology approach. The symposium will help to promote interdisciplinary research and communication among scientists, planners, and other professionals. This symposium is based on the premise that science of landscape ecology linked to practice of conservation and regional planning can provide mutually supportive outcomes for people and nature.