QUANTIFYING THE IMPACTS OF ROADS ON ISFAHAN LANDSCAPE PATTERN USING GRADIENT ANALYSIS AND LANDSCAPE METRICS METHODS

Quantifying urban landscapes pattern is fundamental for monitoring and assessing socio-economical and ecological urban applications. Road expansion is considered as one of the most significant factors in changing urban landscapes pattern. The aim of this study is to quantify the impacts of roads on Isfahans landscape pattern. To achieve this aim, Isfahan land use map was prepared in six classes of urban, green spaces, agriculture, arid land, road and water. In the next step, a 15×3 km2 east-west transect crossing Isfahans city center was designed and then they were quantified using gradient analysis and patch density , index of the largest patch and the percentage of coverage metrics in class and landscape level . The class of road was integrated with the class of urban lands in order to show the effects of roads, then comparing these two transects, the effects of roads were assessed. The results showed that roads severely increased the density of patches in the city landscape. Metric values of the largest patch increase after integrating two applications of road and urban lands .Also, there was a significant correlation between the percentage of road coverage and patch density values. Therefore, the most important effect of road networks on city landscape is increased fragmentation of the city landscape. *Corresponding Author: Zahra Mokhtari  mokhtariiut@yahoo.com