Evaluation of the New City of Sahand Using the Urban Carrying Capacity Assessment System

Among the main challenges in big cities, especially megacities, is the excessive increase in population regardless of the capacity of services and facilities to meet the basic needs of citizens. Identifying the factors affecting biological sustainability, measuring population capacity, and providing management strategies to improve the city were among the goals of this research. The information needed for the research was prepared via document-library and field methods. The fuzzy method was used to descale the indicators of population, water, electricity, and green space. Then, the mentioned indicators were used in the ArcGIS software environment with the methods of Gates Ardeji statistics, Moran's spatial autocorrelation analysis, Morris technique zoning, together with the model. After analyzing the pressure number, the results showed that the Moran values of population, water, electricity, and green space were 0.17, 0.15, 0.15, and 0.03, respectively. Therefore, the first three indicators followed a strong cluster pattern, while the green space index was scattered and distributed in the surface of the city. The maximum capacity of the population, carrying capacity of water, electricity, and green space indicators were equal to 105639, 129121, and 528540 people, respectively. Based on the analysis of population tolerance threshold, water consumption, and electricity distribution, the new city of Sahand was in the critical pressure range, while the green space index was at the optimal threshold so that in the last several years, the city had had a very good green space per capita. Its bearing capacity was more than 80%.