Rural the relationship between settlement pattern, water supply and land use in the khorasan district of Iran between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between settlement patterns, water supply and land use in the Khorasan Province of Iran. In particulars the work concentrates on the period between 1966 and 1976 as most of the original material has been derived from the censuses of those years and also from the associated village gazetteers. Considerable time has been expended translating the raw data into complex settlement maps and these form a key link throughout the text. The thesis begins by considering traditional settlement location theories and introduces some discussion as to their appropriateness far Iran. After some methodological considerations, the main body of the work begins in Chapter 3 with some discussion of the impact of physical factors on settlement location. This is followed by two key chapters which take the physical theme further with a detailed consideration of the relationship between settlement locations and the dynamics of water supply. Chapter 6 returns to the theme of settlement patterns with further consideration of spatial arrangement and settlement densities. The next three chapters examine the human aspects of settlement dynamics more fully with discussion of the impacts of land reform, agricultural land use and population trends respectively. The final chapter concludes the thesis and tries to reconsider the validity of some of the theoretical comments of Chapter 1.The general conclusion demonstrates that since the 1960s there has been a movement towards some degree of potential settlement order and a number of explanations for this are put forward.