Land-Use Change in Wetlands: A Multi-Disciplinary Study in Iran

Land-use changes are a primary cause of global environmental change. Land use is the management of land cover through human intervention. Study of land-use change in wetlands is largely overlooked as an estimated 30 to 90 % of the world’s wetlands have been destroyed or strongly modified. Therefore, supporting wetland conservation is an urgent priority in three high-level global agendas of 2030. While many factors like global warming and changing climates are key to wetland degradation today, overexploitation by agriculture is the most important destroyer of wetlands in countries like Iran. This study examines the case of the Bakhtegan and Tashak wetland in Iran to determine the factors that influence farmers’ attitudes and behaviors toward wetland conservation. This is done in two phases. The first phase uses remote sensing and GIS to analyze land use changes from 2000 to 2020. The second phase involves surveying farmers to examine the factors behind their intended willingness to participate or support conservation. The data were analyzed using ENVI 5.3, GIS 10.3, SPSS 20, and AMOS 20. The results of phase one reveal a significant increase of bare lands around the wetlands. The survey shows that attitude and subjective norms had positive influences on farmers’ behavioral intentions toward wetland conservation to a statistically significant extent.