International Journal of

Because of the suitability of coastal lands for different groups of activities such as recreational, residential and commercial functions, there is an increasing demand among different stakeholders to benefit from these natural lands. The conflicts between the users, sometimes, lead to exclusiveness and limitation of public access to the shoreline. This article aims to recognize the main agents and mechanisms intensifying the spatial segregation and limitation of public access to the coast. By applying the qualitative methods of Interview and documentary analysis in the middle shoreline of Caspian Sea, the categorization of exclusive public shoreline, their supportive contexts and spatial outputs, are formulated. Findings show that in contrast to the privatization of publish shoreline throughout the world, in Iran, beside the role of private sector, it is the government who benefit from the shoreline exclusively. In order to find the role of institutional contexts, analyses of the formal and regulatory documents, laws and regulations, showed the negligence in performance of coastal and agricultural land use control systems which accelerate the processes of land use change and creation of exclusive spaces in the form of gated communities. In the last step, the analysis of interviews with key actors showed the unsuitable spatial consequences especially social segregation and also decline in economics of coastal cities.

This Paper attempts to investigate the patterns of land cover changes and also the process of urban growth in Shiraz Metropolitan Area. Since detailed information of current urban processes is required for future developments and managements of urban areas, this study utilizes remote sensing data and landscape metrics, as useful tools to gather information on urban growth and dynamics, in order to examine the spatial pattern of Shiraz metropolitan area (SMA) from 1986 to 2014. Since, the northwestern areas of SMA are superior in terms of ecological advantages, analysis of types and patterns of SMA growth were separately examined for each sector (NW, NE, SE, and SW). Five landscape metrics were used to analyze compactness and dispersion of urban patches derived from remotely sensed images. The results showed that over the past 28 years, SMA experienced sweeping changes with unexplainable growth during 1996-2006: a great horizontal expansion with 5.89 percent annual growth rate. After facing great urban sprawl, especially on the edge of the main city in the 96-06 period, periphery rural areas beyond the city borders started growing drastically during last decade. While measuring landscape metrics indicates a process of compactness in the growth patterns of NE, SE and SW areas, NW is going to be more dispersed in the coming years.