estimating of forest cover changes in topographic zones in mazandaran province

this study was done to investigation forest cover changes in the mazandaran province in topographic zones. for doing that in the first matched topographic zones and land-use map. after that distribution of forest cover was investigated in plain, lowland, middle land and high land. forest cover changes analyzed in a period of 132 years since the beginning of the destructive activities in the forest in 1880, 2003 in topographic zones. estimating of natural area in the base year was done with isothermal lines map (1:25000 scale) and forest cover in 2003 with land- use map (1:100000 scale). in this research the natural area of forest in mazandaran province was estimated 2042385 hectares. also rate, changes area, average of annual changes area, percentage of total changes and annual forest changes area estimted -0.005, 972165.3(ha), 7364.9 (ha), 47.6 % and 0.36 %. results showed the most and less of forest cover changes is in the plain lands with 96.25% and middle land with 21.88 %. acording to this study before the widespread destruction of forests in the north of iran in 1880, the forest area in mazandaran province was 86.29 percent of total mazandaran territory and in 2003 was changed to 45.22 percent