Treating a cancerous landscape: Implications from medical sciences for urban and landscape planning in a developing region

This study seeks to benefit from a medical science-based implication for urban and landscape planning in the Gorgan Township area, a highly developing region in northeastern Iran. Based on growth stages and patterns of a malignant cancer tumor inside a human's body, a sustainable, realistic and practical urban growth pattern is introduced applying land suitability analysis, SLEUTH urban growth modeling, landscape metrics and statistical analyses. This pattern, in this study called cancer-treating, is implemented through three predictive scenarios including afforest protection (AP), rangeland protection (RP) and historical growth (HG). Accordingly, the effects of each scenario on land suitability parameters for afforest, rangeland and urbanization activities are evaluated to compare their efficiency. In addition, Spearman correlation analysis is also undertaken to measure the bivariate associations between landscape metrics and land suitability values to specifically address the consistency of the cancer-treating growth pattern with the potential of the study area. According to the results, the HG scenario yielded the highest amount of urban growth without substantially modifying the historical growth trajectory while no negative impact on land potential for targeted land-uses were detected. Correlations between landscape metrics and land suitability parameters also provided evidence for the functionality of the cancer-treating growth pattern in terms of area and connectivity metrics. Findings of the present study highlight that cancer-treating growth strategy can be considered as a realistic, practical and sustainable planning alternative for Iranian developing urban environments that are at times undergoing uncontrolled expansion processes.