Interactive effects of urbanization and climate change during the last decades (A case study: Isfahan city)

Year 2016, Volume: 4 Issue: 7, 74 - 81, 03.06.2016

Mohsen Abbasnia Taghi Tavousi Mahmood Khosravi Hüseyin Toros

Abstract

Researchers are investigating to find a possible relation of climate change with anthropogenic behavior by studying trends in different climatic parameters. Nowadays, Isfahan city is experiencing growth of its urban areas by high rate of rural–urban migration and population boom during the last decades. So in this study, by emphasized on descriptive and interpretive approaches various data have been used for detection the effects of anthropogenic behaviors such as; urbanism and land cover change along with global warming conditions. The results of analyzing the satellite images over study area during the three last decades show that the percentage of agriculture and undeveloped areas had respectively decreased from 46.85% to 25.5% and 41.87% to 39.65% in favor of the extension of urban area. In this field, population growth trend in Isfahan province within last years (1990 to 2013) shows the increasing growth rate in cities lather than rural areas. Also, there is a significant positive trend at the 0.05 level in the annual temperature at Isfahan station during the observation period (1980-2010) about a rate of 0.06 °C per year. In other hand, there is a significant positive trend at the 0.05 level between the heart and respiratory moralities and occurrences of warm temperatures about 0.62 and 0.55 respectively in Isfahan. Since, these issues are combine to trend of global warming in coming decades, should be more considerate the all aspects of urbanism growth and its probable risk to public health in the mitigation and adaptation programs. Therefore, the results of this study can be useful for planners to make more informed strategic decisions.

Keywords

Global warming, urban climate, temperature trends, human health, Isfahan

Thanks

The authors would like to thank the climate data providers from Iran Meteorological Organization (IRIMO) and Thanks also to the climatology department of University of Sistan and Baluchestan (USB) and meteorology department of Istanbul Technical University (ITU) in the field of scientific collaborations. It is worth nothing that the study is a part of PhD thesis of Mohsen Abbasnia.

Interactive effects of urbanization and climate change during the last decades (A case study: Isfahan city)

Abstract

Researchers are investigating a possible relation of climate change with anthropogenic behavior by studying trends in different climatic parameters. Nowadays, Isfahan city is experiencing growth of its urban areas due to a high rate of rural–urban migration and a population boom during the last decades. So in this study, various data base by emphasizing descriptive and interpretive approaches have been used for detecting the effects of anthropogenic behaviors such as urbanism and land cover change along with global warming conditions. The results of analyzing satellite images over study area shows that the percentage of agriculture and undeveloped areas had respectively decreased from 46.85% to 25.5% and 41.87% to 39.65% in favor of the extension of urban areas during the last three decades. In this field, population growth trends in Isfahan province within past years (1990 to 2013) shows increasing growth rate in cities rather than rural areas. Also, there is a positive trend at the 0.05 significance level in annual temperature by a rate of 0.06 °C per year at Isfahan station during the observation period (1980-2010). On the other hand, heart and respiratory moralities with warm temperatures trend at Isfahan city shows a positive correlation about 0.62 and 0.55 at the 0.05 significance level, respectively. Since these issues are directly related to global warming in coming decades, there should be more consideration towards all aspects of urban growth and its probable risk to public health in the mitigation and adaptation programs. Therefore, the results of this study can be useful for planners to make more informed strategic decisions.

Keywords

Global warming, urban climate, temperature trends, human health, Isfahan

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