Changes of landscape metrics in Arsbaran forests during 45 years of protection

The variations in the number of six parameters of the landscape metrics in Arasbaran forests were explored in this study. Landsat 8 images from August 2015 were utilized for this purpose. For both protected and non-protected regions, forest and non-forest land use maps (kappa coefficient 0.9) were created, and necessary values were estimated using this map. According to the results, forest covers 34.98% of the protected area and 48.33% of the non-protected area, based on the index of the ratio of the area of the forest class to the surface of the land. In terms of the index of the larger patch of forest class, it was discovered that the largest patch of forest covers 22.0207% of the land in the protected region, while 41.3870% of the area in the unprotected area. In addition, the value of the index of the average area of a patch of the forest class in the non-protected area (8.4947 hectares) is more than twice that of the protected area (18.2241 hectares), and the value of both indicators patch density and edge density in the protected area is higher than in the non-protected area. According to the findings, the presence of processes of forest surface fragmentation is more visible in the protected area than in the non-protected region.