Determination of Potential Habitat of Two Rangeland Species in Semi-Desert Area Using GIS (Case Study: Watershed of Kolah Deraz, Qasr-e-Shirin, Iran)

To determine the potential habitat of two rangeland species of Salsola rigidaand Agropyron trichophorum in Qasr-e-Shirin, Iran, Geographic Information Systems(GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques were used. At first, several maps (vegetationcover and land uses maps and thematic maps of various organizations) were collected orprepared. For digitizing geology, vegetation and conventional states maps, topographicdata layers, soil maps and soil data layers the softwares of ARC/ INFO, ILWIS andTOSCA were used. Land use map of Qasr-e Shirin city was prepared using IRS1 satelliteimagery. The current habitats of studied species were determined by visiting the area andlimiting it by GPS and marking on map. Three sites for each of species were selected. 10soil profiles were randomly drilled in depth of 35 cm within each site. The soil parameterssuch as EC, Texture, pH and organic matter for each sample were measured. The resultsshowed that from the total rangeland area (6270 ha), two locations 1677.3 ha (26%) werefitted for growth of Salsola rigida of which 211 ha (3.36%) from this area belongs tooriginal habitats and 1466 ha remained, was belong to the potential habitat. For the secondspecies, the results indicated that two areas totally 1356 ha were habitat of Agropyrontrichophorum which 167 ha (2.66%) were belonged to the current original habitats and therest of 1189.8 ha (18.97%) was belonged to the potential habitat for Agropyrontrichophorum.