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УДК 528.926:004
Bayramov Emil RMamedov Ramiz
Geography Institute of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences
COASTAL LANDSCAPE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING OF THE AZERBAIJAN NATURE PROTECTED AREAS AFFECTED BY THE CASPIAN SEA LEVEL FLUCTUATION USING GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND REMOTE SENSING
Применение ГИС для ландшафтного планирования прибрежных природоохранных территорий Азербайджана играет важную роль для лучшего понимания интегрированного подхода при анализе всех необходимых природных компонентов. Точные задачи и цели для устойчивого развития исследуемой территории были определены до начала процесса ландшафтного планирования, а также правильно выявлены этапы дальнейших исследований. Доказана необходимость и целесообразность применения ГИС-технологий для ландшафтного планирования, содержательной базы пространственных данных и данных дистанционного зондирования.
Key words: GIS, remote sensing, landscape planning, GPS
INTRODUCTION
The landscape planning principles existing in the different countries differ in concept. This might be explained by the different factors of the countries evolvement. But at the same time it is important to emphasize that most countries have significant differences in nature diversity (A.N. Antipov, 2006). The Landscape Planning methodology applied in Azerbaijan considers the concept and related background experience in Germany as a model, and in general German principles of Landscape Planning were selected as the most appropriate for the research area.
As a result, landscape planning supports the integrated approach to the all possible nature components for the correct relation of them based on the mutual decision making process. For the right decision making it is required to know ecological factors and their interaction. Managing existing environmental situation and preventing new instances make it necessary to available the spatial information for the past and current dates to figure out the tendency and to predict the consequences.
The research area for the implementation of Landscape Planning in Azerbaijan was selected the territory of Shirvan National Park. This area is located in the range of SouthEast Shirvan plain and from geomorphologic aspects it is corresponding to sea coast plain and has quite differential micro-relief created by pseudo sands of eluvia origin.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The materials applied in the process of research are various in character and form representing different components of the nature which give the possibility for the integrated approach to the landscape planning of the territory of the Shirvan National Park. The first objective of the research was to create all the necessary spatial GIS layers as the vegetation, soil, above ground and underground water, land use, climate, digital terrain model and to collect all the necessary theoretical materials
concerning these geographical layers. For the creation of the soil layer it was applied the ground measurements for the collection of the soil patterns important for the remote sensing classification of the low-resolution satellite images. The satellite images applied for this research are the LANDSAT -7 (ETM+) satellite images. LANDSAT -7 images are the generally accepted standards on analysis at moderate resolutions. It had already been geometrically and radiometrically corrected by means of Leica Photogrammetry Suite Software solution (ERDAS 2000). The geometrical correction process of the satellite images were consisting of the three stages: collection of the ground control point, creation of the digital elevation model and orthorectification (ERDAS 2000). All of the points were protocoded in the right way for each of the vegetation pattern point including the coordinates, time of measurement, accuracy, horizontal and vertical datum, coordinate system. The roots mean square error 5 meters what is quite suitable for the geo-correction of the Landsat images and for the further remote sensing processing. The digital elevation model of the territory was created based on the georeferenced 1:25000 topographical maps which were near 40 in number for the territory of the Shirvan National Parks. Using the created Digital Elevation Model the satellite images were orthorectified and corrected from the relief displacement.
After the long search of the vegetation and the soil maps in the required high scale of 1:10000 for the research area, it appeared that there is a necessity to create them from the origin using again possibilities of field measurements and remote sensing analyses based on the geo-corrected Landsat images. Additional GPS measurements were conducted for the collection of the points for the vegetation and soil patterns. Based on this spatial information the Landsat satellite images were classified to get the vegetation and soil cover of the research area. The land use model was created based on the Landsat images and existing topographical maps of 1:10000 of 2003 year. The method for the creation of the land use was absolutely visual and manual because the remote sensing classification of the territory would not give appropriate land use map in the scope of landscape planning objectives. The level of the ground water was represented in the form of the izogips using interpolation from the existing hydrology maps and based on the elevation level of the izogips it was generated the digital ground water model what played the role in the analysis ground water level.
For all of the soil clusters were given the value of the soil permeability and at the same time based on the digital terrain model were calculated the slopes and as a result the soil permeability spatial grid was overlaid with the calculated slope grid model. This overlay analyses gave possibility to represent the water distribution over the territory and to realize the territories which are quite sufficient with the natural water supply and the territories which require additional anthropogenic provision of water to improve the nature of the Shirvan National Park territory.
Unfortunately most of the required cartographic information was not available in the required scale and that was the reason of the required field measurements for the further remote sensing analysis.
Vegetation Cover of Shirvan National Park
On the territory of Azerbaijan are available 4506 species of vegetation, out of which 270 are considered as endemic and near 400 of which are endemic and should be protected. Into the “Azerbaijan Red Book” in 1989 are included 140 species which require inevitable protection measures. In Shirvan National Park it was discovered 157 species of highly important vegetation species corresponding to 116 genus and 35 families (Agaguliev I, 2000). On the whole territory of the Shirvan National Park grows 8 species of endemic vegetation (Abutalibov M., 1976). From them 5 species are the endemics of Caucasus and 3 species are endemics of Azerbaijan.
The problem of the natural resources conservation and also recovery of the rare, endangered species, relict and endemic vegetation species in the Shirvan National Park has it own specific peculiarities (Aliyev G.A. 1986). This is related with the variety of the relief, soil -climatic conditions and other a biotic indicators of ecological factors.
As it is shown in Table 1, the vegetation species for the territory of the Shirvan National Park are classified into 17 associations. For each association it was defined the value of the significance and sensitivity. The significance and sensitivity of the biotopes of the Shirvan National Park were evaluated by three gradations - high, medium and low.
The values of the significance and sensitivity of the Shirvan National Park are determined based on the species composition and structural indicators of the associations about the endangered and endemic vegetation species with the similar communities and also with taking into account of phytocenosis peculiarities of vegetation cover (species composition, life-forms, composition of the vegetation, presence of the rare and endemic vegetation species, projective cover of the soil surface with vegetation cover).
Table 1. Criteria table for the sensitivity and significance of the vegetation
associations
Names of biotope types with domination of vegetation species Significance Sensitivity
Shishkovato - prikaspiysko solyanko kolosnicovaya (with dominant of Halocnemum strobilaceum; with presence of Sphenopus divaricatus) Low High
Efermerovo - caspiysko potashnikovaya (with dominant of Kalidium caspicum) Low High
Drevovidnosvedovo-prikaspiyskosolanocolosnikovaya (with dominant of Halostachys belangeriana) Low High
Efemerovo-gornosolankovaya (gengizovaya), (with dominant of Salsola nodulosa, with presence of Allium rubellum, Stipa caspica) Low High
Vetvistopetrosimonevaya (with dominant of Petrosimonia brachiata, with presence of Tetradiclis tenella) Low High
Evropeysco-solerosovaya (with dominant of Salicornia europia; with presence of Puccinellia gigantea) Low High
Efemerovo-dushistopolino-drevovidnosvedovaya (with dominant of Suaeda dendroides) Medium High
Efemerovo-dushistopolino (with dominant of Artemisa fragrans) High High
Smeshanoefemerovaya (with dominant of Sphenopus divaricatus, Bromus japonicus, Hordeum leporinum, Lolium rigidum etc.) Medium High
Dushistopolino - vereskovidnosolancovaya (with dominant of Salsola ericoides) Low High
Dushistopolino-vereskovidnosolancovo-vetvistopetrosimoniyevaya (with dominant of Petrosimonia brachiata) Low High
Dushistopolino-drevovidnosolankovaya (with dominant of Salsola dendroides) Medium Medium
Dushistopolino -gornosolankovaya (with dominant of Salsola gemascens) Medium Medium
Polzuche pribrejnicevo - obicnoveno-verblujyacolluchkovaya (with dominant of Alhagi pseudoalhagi; with presence of Artemisia swovitziana, Linaria simplex) High Low
Meyerocermecobo - drevovidnosolankovo-mnogovetvistotamaricovaya (with dominant of Tamarix ramosissima) Low High
Yujno-trosnikovaya (with dominant of Phragmites australis) Medium Medium
Sibirscoturneforciyevo -persidscovyuncovaya (with dominant of Convolvulus persicus (ruderale), with presence of Argusia sibirica, Artemisia scoparia) Low High
Climate conditions and microclimate peculiarities of Shirvan Nationla Park
As the Shirvan National Park is located on the eastern part of South-east Shirvan plain which is one of the six Kura - Arza lowland, the climate conditions are more corresponding in generalities to this plain. But because some of the hills (Mushovdag etc.) and mud volcanoes (Pirsaar, Bandovan, Kursangi) area are available in this territory, the relief of this territory differs from the other parts of Kura -Araz lowland. On the South - east Shirvan Plain along the Coast of the Caspian Sea are Pirsaat and Bandovan Capes, delta part of Kura river with the width of 5-10 km (in the of valley of 15 - 20 km) and also abrasion form of relief (Kurinskaya kosa), which have an influence on the microclimatic conditions of the territory. At the same time microclimatic peculiarities as the temperature of the surface layer and humidity of air significantly impact on the redistribution of the soil humidity. Microclimatic elements significantly affect on the soil cover and biotopes. That’s why the vegetation of South -east Shirvan plain and Shirvan National Park is in some aspects different from the general vegetation of Kura -Araz lowland.
However the regime and temperature distribution of air temperature of the research territory of Azerbaijan is in particular depends on the relief peculiarities. The temperature of air in this area is one of the main exogenous factors affecting on the growth, development and distribution of the bio-components including vegetation cover. The temperature of the research area does not significantly vary what is explained by the uniformity of relief as plain. Average annual temperature varies in the limit of 14,2-14,60 C.
Absolute maximal temperature of air varies in the limit of 38-420, absolute minimal temperature ranges in the limit of 16-240. The researches show that the Caspian Sea also plays role in the change of the day-to-day amplitude of the air temperature and with the moving off the Caspian Sea amplitude increases (Q.A Gadjiev, 1977).
What about, Agro climatic resources of Shirvan National Park the main agro climatic indicators as the sum of the annual day-to-day air temperatures higher than 100, the humidity indicator as Md and FAR. On this territory the sum of the active temperatures ranges in the limit of 4400-4600 degree. The territory has significant recreational and bioclimatic potentials.
RESULTS
The survey verification and measurements of the vegetation patterns gave possibility for the remote sensing classification of the Landsat satellite images and for the creation of the vegetation associations for the territory of the Shirvan National Park. The defined criteria table represented on the Table 1 and created based on the scientific analyses had to be related with the base association classes for the establishment of the main vegetation layers as the significance and sensitivity of the vegetation using specially developed algorithm. As a result of the reclassification based on the criteria table it was created the spatial layer for the vegetation sensitivity represented on Fig. 1 and the spatial layer for the vegetation significance represented on Fig. 2.
The spatial nature component layers were created also for the soil, microclimate, and ground water level, land use, hydrology, fauna and also for the anthropogenic objects as road, infrastructure, irrigation network and other construction objects on the territory of the Shirvan National Park. After the similar processing of the images for the soil cover it was also created the maps of the sensitivity and significance for the soil cover including also the spatial soil cover depending on the mechanical consistency.
The created land use map had much larger coverage of area than the territory of the Shirvan National Park because there are a lot of land use uncertain situations along the boundary of the national parks. The land use consisted of the following classes: prohibited area, touristic zones, roads, paths, pasture, swamps, sands, lake, military base, damaged land, lake, canals, residential districts etc. The determination of the required object was done based on the availability and visibility of sites on the satellite images and existing maps and partly by field verification.
The digital elevation model created based on the 1:10000 maps played the very important role for the calculation of the potential Caspian Sea water level fluctuation flooding impacts on the coastal areas of the research area and at the same time to understand the relation of the water level fluctuation in relation with the research territory ground water level increase and decrease depending on the flooding of the coastal areas (CEP 2000).
The ground water level spatial layer was prepared for two Caspian Sea variation levels, first is for the current -28 and for -27. It gave possibility to simulate the prediction of the ground water level increase and decrease depending on the Caspian Sea fluctuation factor what is very important from the point of the coastal areas salinity increase and desertification (CEP 1998).
The created microclimate map especially played the important role in the determination of the maximum, medium and minimum precipitation during the year and it is one of the important spatial layers which will support to plan the areas required for the anthropogenic provision of water and to understand the recreational and bioclimatic potentials of the research area.
The prepared hydrology map is focused on the classification of the zone depending of the water hardness and consistency over the research territory and at the same time in regards to the water amount.
The final created spatial component is the distribution of the animals which are in particular Gazelles over the territory by the measurement units of the gazelle’s number per hectare.
All of these nature components play very important role as the core information for the functioning of the Landscape Planning Instrument. Based on the acquired results the following stage of the research was to apply to the spatial overlay analysis to determine the areas which must be conserved, protected, developed, and improved. In our case the conservation means to leave the land for some period not using it, the protection means not giving possibility for such factors as overgrazing, development means is for instance the recovering activities of the damaged land, improvement is the different improvement activities on the land considered to be in the quite
developed form but require to make additional improvements. In the conclusion of the results item it was given the output from the overlay analyses of two vegetation spatial layers - sensitivity and significance giving as a result the spatial grid layer showing the vegetation areas requiring for the protection what was applied for the further detailed zoning. (Fig. 3).
Fig. 1: Significance of vegetation
Fig. 2: Sensitivity of vegetation
Fig. 3: Zons of vegetation protection
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSSIONS
The novelty of this research is following. The GIS- based Landscape Planning Instrument to be used for the purposes of the Azerbaijan Nature Protected Areas planning has been created in Azerbaijan for the first time. In comparison with the implemented researches in landscape planning the peculiarity of this research is the small coverage range of the research areas for which the landscape planning instrument was created and the required data sources were quite in high scale. For such research it is important not only to focus on some particular place where the landscape planning but it is also important to carry out the analysis of the wide territory because the most impacting factors in our research are exposed outside of the research territory, that’s why it is also important to take measures in the solution of the external factors affecting the sustainable development of the national park. The results of the research give clear measured indication determined based on the integrated analyses of the variety of nature elements which areas should be conserved, protected, improved and developed. Another factor of the research in the coverage scale that the results of such kind of research are very tightly depending on the availability and the correctness of the spatial data what requires additional efforts and time. That is very important to have periodic access to the accessible satellite and aerial photography data sources to be able to update the changes over the territory or to apply the field verification and measurements.
This landscape planning approach gives the possibility to approach to the planning in the integrated form by different authorities and also communities to
make integrated decision making, besides the big advantage that the spatial data might be disseminated and transparent. One of the most important issue that it supports also the possibility to identify the source of the problem and come up with the varied solutions and to select the most reasonable from them.
The practical value of this landscape planning instrument that it might be applied as the concept and the technical solution over all of the nature protected areas of Azerbaijan using certainly appropriate data sources in the standardized form.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I express my high gratitude to the World Federation of Scientists for the financial support in implementation of my PhD research!
References
1. A.N. Antipov, Landscape Planning: Tools and experience in implementation, Bonn -Irkutsk - 2006
2. M. Abutalibov, (1976): Rastitel’nyj pokrov Azerbaydzhana (Vegetation of Azerbaijan). Ishyg: Baku. (in Russian)
I. Agaguliyev (2000): Flora i Rastitelnosti Yugo-Vostochnoy Shirvani. Baku
Gosudarstvennyy Universitet. Baku.
3. Q.A Gadjiev, Agro climatic Atlas of Azerbaijan SSR, Baku, 1993, Climate of cotton district of Azerbaijan SSR. Baku, 1977
4. CEP (2000): Azerbaijan National Coastal Profile. National Report: Baku.
5. Erdas (2000): ERDAS Imagine Field Guide. ERDAS Inc.: Atlanta.
6. CEP (Caspian environmental program) (1998): Regional Action Plan for the Protection of Caspian Habitats: Baku <http://www.caspianenvironment.org/newsite/index.htm> (accessed: 18/2/2005)
Biographical notes
Emil Bayramov has significant experience in Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing technologies applied in Landscape and Urban Planning, Cadastre and Registration of Rights, Environmental Management, Coastal Management, Digital Mapping, GIS software development working in Azerbaijan and other former Soviet Union Countries. He has the number of published scientific works and he is the winner of the two scientific awards.
Contacts
Emil Rafael Bayramov
Geography Institute of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Centre of Caspian Sea Problems GIS/Geomatics Senior Scientific Researcher Adress: Inshaatchilar 31, flat 3, Az1065,
Baku, Azerbaijan
Mobile: (+99450) 336 00 50
Email: emil.bayramov@yahoo.com
© Emil R. Bayramov, Ramiz Mamedov, 2008
