Study of the Effect of Management Criterion on Desertification Control (Case Study: Kashan)

Desertification is more related to social and anthropogenic issues than natural causes and it becomes moreimportant over the time. Human effects on desertification could be classified as direct and indirect factors. This studyhas focused on the effect of management factor, as a dominant case, on desertification of Kashan region based onIMDPA (IMDPA: Iranian Model of Desertification for Potential Assessment) model. The geometric average weightwas used in order to find out the numerical value of management factor and then; desertification status map of thearea was prepared using GIS. The results showed that about 59.96 percent of the region, based on managementcriterion, is classified in the medium class of desertification which mostly covers central, northern, southeastern andwestern parts of the region. Meanwhile, irrigation systems, rangeland ploughing and the index of evaluationimplemented activity having the numeral value of 3.52, 3.43 and 2.23 are the most important affecting factors ondesertification, respectively. Increasing unwise human activities due to lack of sufficient knowledge on new irrigationand cultivation technologies has been resulted on accelerated degradation and consequent desertification. Then,combination of new extension and traditional knowledge, policy making and planning may lead to desertificationcontrol in the region.