Modeling Factors Affecting Land Use Change in Ahvaz Metropolis

• Published in: جغرافیا و پایداری محیط
• Main Author: Saead Amanpour , Saead Malaki , Mahnaz Hoseini Siah Goli
• Format: Article
• Language: Persian
• Published: Razi University 2022-01-01
• Subjects: urban land use; demographic changes; amos modeling; ahvaz metropolis
• Online Access: https://ges.razi.ac.ir/article_2194.html?lang=en
• ISSN: 2322-3197; 2676-5683

Today, land use change has become a very important challenge in many countries and land use has changed along with the rapid urban growth and under the influence of the urbanization process and need of citizens for diverse uses, and process of these changes is a process that leads to create a proper understanding of the interaction between humans and the natural environment, and this issue is more important in sensitive urban areas. The aim of the present study is to investigate the factors affecting urban land use changes in Ahvaz metropolis. The current research is a descriptive-analytical investigation. The sample size is estimated to be 200 people based on Sample Power software. In order to break down and analyze the questionnaires, different statistical softwares such as SPSS 27, Amos 24, statistical methods of structural equation modeling, and one-sample T-test have been used. The results along with the conceptual model of the test show that a strong and significant relationship has been observed between four political-legal, physical, socio-demographic, and economic factors with land use change (p<0.05) and the fit indices. The model also shows the appropriateness of the data with the conceptual model and as a result the model is approved. Also, the T-Tech test of a sample checking the averages show that the highest average and as a result the greatest impact on land use change was related to the economic factor, the physical factor, the social-demographic factor, and the political-legal factor respectively. Based on the results, the influence of economic and physical factors can be considered high, and socio-demographic and political-legal factors have a moderate effect on the change of urban land use. Extended Abstract 1-Introduction The world is rapidly changing and transforming, the speed of this change and transformation has been more than any other time in the history of human life. Therefore, the change in cities is one of the most important changes taking place in the world, and cities as a major cultural change in human life have caused a change in the mutual relations of humans with each other and their environment. One of the most important effective factors in achieving sustainable development and one of the most important concerns of the country's managers is the appropriate use of land and fair access to this use. In the same direction, paying attention to land use as an important element of urban planning has become important, and by knowing how land use changes and the ratio of their changes over time, it is possible to predict planning according to future changes. There are many factors in land use change that influence urban land use decisions, so it is necessary to select and separate factors affecting urban land use changes for modeling land use changes. Thereby, it can be said that today in developing countries, the rapid increase in urbanization, along with the expansion of large cities, has made it inevitable to pay attention to the discussion of urban land use changes in the evaluation of its developments. Considering the importance of anthropocentric issues in the perspective of sustainable development and urban sustainability, the present research attempts to study the urban land use process, which actually shows the performance of a city and its development artery, according to the components shaping changes in urban land use evaluation. In fact, this important issue will be followed through the identification of factors affecting urban land use in the form of its four components, i.e. economic, social-demographic, physical, and legal-political indicators. The current research seeks to provide answers for two questions: first, what are the most important factors affecting urban land use changes in Ahvaz metropolis? Second, how is the structural relationship of the identified components to explain the changes in urban land use? The answer can define a clear vision of the realization and action towards the realization of urban land use changes in Ahvaz. Reviewing the background of the research depicts that due to the importance and necessity of the land use change in Iran, attention has been paid to identifying the effective factors in urban land use changes. Despite the fact that the knowledge of the factors affecting land use changes in metropolises is very important today, research has not been done with special approach in this regard. The present research seeks to identify the key factors affecting land use changes in Ahvaz. This investigation distinguishes the present research from other researches. 2-Materials and Methods The current research has been carried out with the "descriptive-analytical" methodology. The most important descriptive part of the current research is to collect the effective components in urban land use changes using the library and interview method, which according to the research goal in order to identify the effective components of urban land use changes in order to realize it in the management process. In this regard, first, 42 key and explanatory variables for urban land use changes were extracted and collected from the sources and backgrounds related to the subject, and then the variables were verified by 10 research experts using the targeted Delphi method in two stages. 3- Results and Discussion To analyze the urban land use components, mean comparison method, single sample T test, and mean analysis were used, considering that the significance level (0.000) is less than the error rate (0.5), so the results show that the urban land use components are significant with 0.95 percent confidence. The economic sub-component is at a higher level than the other sub-components, economic, physical, socio-demographic, and political-legal factors are ranked next in order of priority. Also, the analysis of the components based on the factor load and correlation level has shown that the explanatory variables have a reliability of 0.83. The results showed that according to the amount of factor loadings obtained for all questions, which are more than 0.40 and at a significant level of less than 0.05, the construction validity of all obvious variables or questionnaire questions is confirmed. The Average Variance Extracted Index (AVE) was used to check the convergent validity which measures the convergent validity from a minimum of 0.42 for the political-legal factor to a maximum of 0.62 for the socio-demographic factor, which showed that the convergent validity of the two political-legal and physical factors was an average value and the convergent validity of the two socio-demographic factors and economic was a favorable amount. Therefore, the validity and reliability of all factors and questions are confirmed. 4- Conclusion The results in accordance with the conceptual model of the test show that a strong and significant relationship has been observed between four political-legal, physical, socio-demographic, and economic factors with land use change (p<0.05) and the fit indices. The model also shows the appropriateness and fit of the data with the conceptual model and as a result the model is approved. Moreover, the T-Tech test of a sample checking the averages showed that the highest average and as a result the greatest impact on land use change was related to the economic factor, the physical factor, the social-demographic factor, and the political-legal factor respectively. In conclusion, the influence of economic and physical factors can be considered high, and socio-demographic and political-legal factors have a moderate effect on the change of urban land use.