Evaluation of the effects of minimum winter temperatures on changing the type of cultivation and changing the use of agricultural lands. (Case study: Urmia county)

Abstract Land use and land cover change (LULC) and climate change are among the major threats to the global environment. Assessing the causes of land use change and its relationship with climate change is one of the important issues that understanding its process can help better human interaction with the environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of climate change on changing land use and land cover. The indicators used to achieve the mentioned goal are: ((average minimum winter temperatures), Number of days (≤ 0°C), Number of days (≤-10°C) and 30-year Landsat satellite images)), CMIP5(CanESM2) model was used to predict temperature changes and CA-MARKOV model was used to predict land use changes and finally Pearson correlation coefficient test was used to measure the correlation. The results of the study indicated that, there is a direct relationship between changes of minimum winter temperatures and changing the type of cultivation and land use in Urmia city. Also, simulation of temperature changes showed that there is the highest (> 0.8) correlation between rcp4.5 scenarios and land use changes, which indicates a high probability of changes in the specified time period (2018–2033).