New Approach for Protection Prioritization of National Terrestrial Ecosystems

Description of the ecosystems’ characteristic and location plays an important role in terrestrial management, biomes and biodiversity protection. Selection of representative protected areas is possible by identification and classification of ecosystems and their geographical distribution. Moreover, the arrangement and adjacency of ecosystems can be useful in adopting appropriate land use patterns that is effective for land use planning results. In this study, we followed two goals including terrestrial ecosystems identification at national level and analysis of ecosystem structure indices in provinces for protected areas selection. Presence, diversity, and evenness indices, also, Jaccard's similarity coefficient were used. Based on land-climate and vegetation criteria, ecosystems were distinguished. For this purpose, DEM, De Martonne’s classification and vegetation type layers were used and overlaid in the ArcGIS 10.2. Results showed that 21 ecosystems are distinguishable in the country and then according to provinces' analysis, Isfahan gained the first, Semnan, Fars, Kerman, and Golestan the second and Ardebil the third priorities in terms of protected areas selection. Also, based on similarity and dissimilarity indices, the provinces were classified into 12 groups. Patterns of selection of protected areas and capability assessment of ecosystem services for each group will be considered independently.