Determination of Love tree spatial distribution in Mlavy forest area on the physiographic factors using GIS

Based on the adaptation to the different climates and high resistance against drought, redbud tree has a wide spread around the world. This tree is habituated from Khorram Abad to PolDokhtar around Kashkan River in Lorestan province. The aim of this study was to determine the most important physiographic factors affecting the redbud distribution. The areas of redbud presence were specified by field visiting and GPS device. Using GIS the maps of elevation, slope, aspect and distance from streams with 1:25000 scale was developed for these areas. Then, the distribution map was merged with maps of elevation, slope and aspect, and distance from streams and the area of redbud presence was obtained. There was a significant difference between elevation classes at 0.05% level and between slope and distance from streams classes at 0.01% level, while no significant differences was found between the aspect classes. The results showed that 72.1% of these habitats were located at 720-912 m above sea level and 85.5% placed between 0-20% slopes in a distance less than 100 m from the streams. Besides, 66 percent of these habits are located on northern and southern aspects.