Determination of Rangeland Grazing Suitability Model (Case Study: Sarab Sefid Basin, Lorestan, Iran)
- Department of Range Management, Borujerd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Borujerd, Lorestan, Iran
Received: 2023-02-07
Revised: 2024-02-15
Accepted: 2024-02-21
Published 2025-01-20
Copyright (c) 2025 Ali Ariapour (Author)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Abstract
Livestock grazing in unsuitable land has increasingly grown in most parts of rangelands of Iran due to population growth. It causes many irreparable damages such as soil erosion, water loss, and wealth loss. Therefore, it is important to identify the best suitable land for livestock grazing. Land suitability for livestock grazing is affected by many ecosystem components, but due to time and funding restrictions, the most important and feasible elements have to be investigated. This paper adapted the schematic model based on the concepts presented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suitability analysis for livestock grazing in Sarab Sefid Borujerd rangeland, Iran. Significant factors to livestock grazing, such as forage, soil and water which were in sub-models were determined and incorporated into the final model of rangeland grazing suitability. Some important maps include Digital Elevation Model (DEM), slope, aspect, range condition, range trend, forage, soil erosion, and water sources were used as input data. Three sub models including water accessibility, forage production and erosion sensitivity were considered. The most adaptation of Suitability occurs for class (Good) S1, (Medium) S2, (Poor) S3 and (Non-suitable) N, respectively using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). First, the complete raster layers valued and ranked by FAO method for each factor, then integrated by overlays intersected command. Results showed that according to 16 types of vegetation cover, none of them were placed in S1 class, and 3088.75 ha (52.68%) S2, 1892.63 ha (32.27%) S3 and 882.85 ha (15.06%) were in N class, respectively. Also, result determined that there was no limitation of water resources in total rangeland and the most and main important factor effects on suitability were soil erosion and slope due to mountainous area. According to the field data, and comparing with the study data, it was concluded that GIS technique is a fast and accurate method for monitoring and determining the suitability of rangelands.
Keywords
- Livestock grazing,
- Rangeland suitability,
- Sheep grazing,
- Geographical information system
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