AU - Sheikh Mohammady, Majid AU - safaei, Amir TI - A Game Theoretic Approach to Reordering and Optimal Governance of Urban Fringes (Insights for Farmland Change Conflict) PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE TA - Geographical-Researches JN - Geographical-Researches VO - 31 VI - 4 IP - 4 4099 - http://georesearch.ir/article-1-28-en.html 4100 - http://georesearch.ir/article-1-28-en.pdf SO - Geographical-Researches 4 ABĀ  - Changing farmland into constructed areas at urban fringes can be counted as one of the most critical land use conflicts in Iran. Regarding impacts of such change whether from the point of urban sprawl or environmental preservation, it would be necessary to study and resolve these conflicts for reordering and optimal governance of urban fringes. This paper is seeking to investigate two questions: 1) could game theory be used as a suitable and flexible tool to resolving such conflicts? 2) Have these conflicts’ parties been motivated to take more non cooperative interactions which finally lead to farmland loss in urban fringes affected by the employed farmland preservation and urban growth management policies and mechanisms in Iran? To seek answers, a game theoretic conflict model was developed using the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), to analyze the conflict over farmland change in Qom metropolis, one of the controversial land-use conflicts in Iran. Results show that if current policies and mechanisms prevail, the most likely outcome of the conflict would be continual farmland loss. In this situation, municipal administrations would choose to take actions that will result in dispersed growth of farmland while developers and constructors prefer to change the land use and redevelop them so that the farmland owners prefer selling their lands over keeping their agricultural activities. Therefore, the results acknowledged the capability of game theory as a reliable method for resolving and preventing conflicts in land use change situations. Also strategic insights provided into the Qom land use change conflict underlined the necessity of revising current national policies and mechanisms of farmland preservation and urban growth management. CP - IRAN IN - LG - eng PB - Geographical-Researches PG - 88 PT - Original Research YR - 2017