Identifying suitable mangrove habitats at the local scale for mangrove afforestation in southern Iran

Afforestation has been one of the most effective measures to compensate for mangrove ecosystem loss across the world and requires a detailed understanding of all contributing hydrological and physico-chemical factors affecting their growth. In this study, the Maxent habitat suitability model was employed to identify suitable mangrove habitats in the ​​Hara Roud-e Gaz Protected Area. Presence data were collected through field surveys and 10 predictive layers were produced in two classes of structural-morphological and sediment physicochemical parameters. The area under the ROC curve of the Maxent model was 0.963, which indicates the high model potency in identifying suitable mangrove habitats. Based on the Jaknaif results, distance to mangrove communities, followed by distance from water canals and altitude were identified as the most contributing variables, respectively. The most suitable areas (255 ha - 3.1% of the total area of ​​the estuary) were located in the middle of the region, especially along the main estuarine canals towards upstream areas. Factors such as the imbalanced sedimentation, increasing erosive power of sea waves along with sea-level rise have shifted the mangrove suitable habitats to upstream areas and away from their historical range.