Minimizing Impact of the Urbanization on the Physical Habitat Suitability of Downstream River by a Multi-objective Optimization

Abstract

\n Urbanization might considerably change outflow of catchment that might affect physical habitat suitability at downstream river ecosystem. Present study proposes and evaluates an applicable method to minimize impact of urbanization on the suitability of physical habitats in which habitat loss and area of the urban region are optimized. coupled particle swarm optimization- adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system is used to simulate runoff in the structure of a multi-objective metaheuristic optimization. Fuzzy physical habitat simulation was applied to simulate suitability of physical habitats. Different measurement indices including the Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient, root means square error and vulnerability index were utilized to measure performance of the simulation-optimization system. Based on the results in the case study, the proposed system is able to mitigate physical habitat impacts by optimizing area of the urban region. Regional government had planned to urbanize 90% of the catchment area. However, it damages physical habitats considerably. The optimal plan reduced the urban area to 56% and minimized physical habitat loss. This method is able to reduce negotiations between regional governments and environmental advocators for development of the new urban areas in terms of minimizing physical habitat loss in river ecosystems.