Assessment of Development Trend in Protected Areas (Jajrud Protected Area, Tehran, Iran)

The echoes of human activities are felt everywhere، even in regions usually regarded as wilderness، such as national parks. Presence of adverse activities inside these areas، which is inconsistent with conservation of their primary goal of protection، will end in structural damages and prevent the fulfillment of the function of these sensitive and important areas. protected areas are amongst the most valuable ecological reserves، thus، knowing the way they change through time will help us in their management quality. Having their change trend at reach will assist us to know about the cause of their changes and will end up in the best decision making and policies. In this study Khojeer and Sorkheh-Hesar national parks that are parts from a single protected area are investigated as case studies، located at Eastern Tehran، Iran. During the recent decades، built-up areas were expanded throughout the region which is threatening the natural environment. To find out the level of degradation of the region caused by this kind of land use change during years 1996، 2000 and 2010 we used image processing using the remote sensing techniques for change detection assessment of study area. Then for this purpose we classified the land use maps in five classes for each period and change detection Was done. The results of this study showed that the greatest destruction caused by human development، such as industrial and residential town development of and dam occurred in the years 2000-2010. Also the highest increase in land use classes is relate to residential in the study area..