SPACE ECONOMY & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Ranking of livelihood Capitals in Mountain Tourism Villages Case: Bala- Taloqan Rural District in Taloqan County

Mojtaba Ghadiri Masoum

Introduction

Poverty is one of the greatest challenges confronting humanity. It is said that poverty is almost related to natural resources, while it is also because of some other factors like natural and human capitals. Villagers are considered among the poorest and most vulnerable within human societies, especially in the countries of the third world. If the purpose of development is obviously that of poverty alleviation and eradication through employment generation for the rural and urban poor, supplying the minimum of basic requirements acceptable to everyone, increase of productivity, causing more balance between geographic areas and socio-economic classes, decentralization and people involvement in the process of decision-making, having emphasis on collective and national self-confidence, finding balance and the recovery of living conditions, then we can consider the rural communities as one of the most significant factors causing the above objectives come true. So, rural development plays a vital role in achieving the overall objectives of development at the national level. Approaches and paradigms are always provided by scientists and theorists to assist us achieving the above objectives. In 1980s, sustainable livelihoods (LS) and sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) was proposed to be used a new approach in poverty eradication. The main emphasis of this approach was based on a comprehensive and integrated thought for poverty eradication and rural development. In a short time, this approach could attract the attention of many researches. Since, livelihood capitals is an important aspect of sustainable livelihoods approach and because of the important role of these assets in the livelihood of families, especially rural ones whose condition is influenced by tourism activities, in this research we decided to investigate the impact of tourism activities on livelihood capitals in mountain tourism villages of Bala-Taloqan in Taloqan County so we can find out the answer to the question that which villages are better in the case of this kind of capitals.

Methodology

As a city of Alborz Province, Taloqan County is located at a distance of 90 km from the center of the province and within the northwest of it. In 2012, the city had 2 parts of central and Bala-Taloqan. It was also consisted of 8212 households and a population of 23765. Bala-Taloqan as the study case of this research consists of two rural districts: Kenar-rood and Joestan (central district) with 48 residential villages. In this paper, we have selected 10 mountain villages which have been affected by tourism. The purpose of this study is to investigate the issue of prioritization of capitals resulting from tourism activities in mountain tourism villages of the district of top Talogan, among inhabited households using analytical- descriptive method with an emphasis on library work, field studies and completing the questionnaires. Meanwhile, hierarchical Filler Triangle was used as a model to weighting each indicator along with Oreste method for ranking and prioritization of the mountain tourism villages in terms of investigating the condition of tourism assets and capitals.

Discussion and Conclusion

Considering livelihood capitals, Galird has the best and the village of Manglan has the worst condition. Galirad village, according to its proper position relative to the connecting roads and its distinctive tourist attractions, i.e. the old house of Ayatollah Taleqani, enjoys a certain reputation that has caused more tourists go there. Moreover, Guidance plan has been already implemented in the village that is important in the improvement of connecting roads quality and making easy-access roads. After Galird, Karkbud village is located in the second place. Its famous waterfall is the most important attraction of the village which has given it a national reputation. Although, it has located at an altitude of 2200 meters and it is difficult to access it, the attractive waterfall has compensated for this limitation and attracted tourists. Additionally, the village is very rich in terms of natural capital, but tourism has not developed enough and has failed to make the promotion of other capitals. The results of interviews conducted with residents indicate that they are dissatisfied with tourists there and think of them as a contributing factor to environmental degradation and the rise of social abnormalities. Joestan has also dedicated to the third place of this ranking. Vicinity to Shahrood River and the presence of tomb shrine of Haron the son of Muses, are the most important attractions of this village. Although it is the center of Top Talogan district, it has failed to accomplish its central role. So, many people have left the village over time as even the tomb shrine as a strong religious attraction with lodging facilities has not been able to properly accomplish its role of attracting tourists. For this reason, it is only social capitals, and partially, financial capitals, which have perfect situations here. Other villages have similar status and in spite of having human and natural attractions they have not been successful enough in collecting capitals. Of course, it must be mentioned that in this district tourism is mostly found in the form of Daily tourism and second home tourism by a more percentage of Daily tourists than the second-home ones. Because in the mountain villages studied, due to the lack of access to adequate lands with sufficient slopes in order to construct housing units, there have always been lots of limitations for constructing second houses for the non-native. Additionally, in some villages such as Karkbood, native people refuse to sell lands to the non-native and this could affect the status of financial capital of the village.

Assessment of Factors Affecting Quality of Life in Centers of Rural Districts, Jiroft County

Saleh Shahrokhi Sardou

Introduction

The concept of quality of life has been emerged in theoretical literature and press in early 1960s, it has turned to be one of the interested issues in social science and in recent years, it has been a base for modern differentiation and classification of countries. Improving quality of life in a special place or for special people or groups is always the focusing concern to plan makers. Improving quality of life could be followed by other dimensions of development such as social, economic and physical ones. In this way, rural areas need some studies related to quality of life. These studies should include related aspects to quality of life in the village, reduction of geographical exclusion and accessibility to basic needs of life. Moreover, the results of studies on quality of life could be helpful in assessment of policies, ranking the locations, codification of management strategies and urban and rural planning which can facilitate understanding and prioritization of socio-economic issues for plan makers and managers to improve people's quality of life. Considering that urban growth and urbanization are the most obvious social, economic changes in recent times, urbanization rapidly spread so that this phenomenon has limited most of the opportunities which can improve quality of life for the villages. However, in many rural areas in Iran, despite of different changes in case of improving quality of life, we are still far from the ideal situation. This condition is more obvious in the areas that most of the population lives in the villages; Jiroft County located in Kerman Province is an example. Therefore, this study aims to assess factors affecting quality of life in villages located in Jiroft.

Methodology

According to its aim, this study is a practical one and regarding its data collection method, it is a survey which uses questionnaires as the tool of data collection; The face validity is confirmed by faculty members in Yasouj University and Shiraz University; to examine its validity, Pilot study is conducted as the pre-test outside the study population, on the residents in Ali-Abad village, Jiroft; Calculation of Cronbach's alfa for different factors (from 0.71 to 0.89) is estimated that suggests the reliability of this assessment tool. In this study, the unit of analysis includes the householder. Furthermore, according to government census, the population was 4243 households among them 350 households have been chosen using Krejcie & Morgan random sampling table as the population of this study; samples have been chosen according to each village population and geographical region according to the classes. Data analysis was performed using SPSS.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study is the assessment of each factors of quality of life in studied villages from householders' point of view. According to the obtained average value of 2.75, analytical results in the case of social factor are assessed which is under the average. According to the obtained average value of 3.43, in the case of social security, the studied households' condition has been estimated more than the average and findings related to average comparison in this factor shows that Delfard village has the worst condition and Sarbijan village has the best condition. According to the average value of 0.74 in the case of housing factor, the housing status in the studied villages was estimated more than the average. The results of average comparison showed that Halil village is on the highest level and Esfandegheh village is on the lowest level in the case of average factor. According to the average value of 20.38 which is related to the third group that means most of the studied population, income factor showed that most of studied population have average income and among them, comparing other studied villages, residents of Khaton-abad village have the highest level in the case of average income and it is different from other studied villages. Next factor is wealth which is assessed by five subset. According to the average value of 0.41 in this factor, it can be said that the level of wealth in studied villages is lower than average level and among them, Delfard and Ganj-abad villages are at the lowest level and Esfandegheh and Sarbijan villages are at the highest level. Next factor is per capita household expenditure on clothing; the result of analyzing this factor shows that given the frequency of 192 people (54.9%), per capita expenditure on clothing for each person is between 200 to 300 hundred Tomans in a year and comparing to other villages, Delfard village has a better condition regarding the average level of this factor. The results in the nutrition factor shows that villages located in this region are divided to four grades regarding the average calories intake per gram in food by households. Among them, Delfard village is completely different from other villages and in terms of calories amount that its residents consume, this village has a better condition. The last studied factor is people's satisfaction of objective dimensions of quality of life. According to the obtained average value of 3.15 which is higher than theoretical average (number 3), considering this factor, the status of studied households is assessed higher than the average level. The results of average comparison in this factor show that all the villages are divided to four classes regarding the average value of the considered factor. Among them Dolat-abad and Ganj-abad villages have the worst and Esfandegheh and Delfard villages have the best condition.

Spatial Inequalities Associated with the Development of Agricultural Sector in East Azerbaijan Province

Ahmad Assadzadeh

Introduction

Agriculture sector is actually known as an economic sector, as it is said that economic growth would be impossible in the absence of agriculture growth. Nowadays, by using accurate scientific researches as an inspiration source and investigating environment potentials and capabilities of every area we can achieve comprehensive agricultural development and principles. In this way, identification of development and underdevelopment levels of agricultural zones seems essential to start out to and make development planning of sustainable development. As compared to other places in our country, East Azerbaijan province has more appropriate sources of agriculture. So that about 19.2 percent of its total geographical area belongs to the cultivated lands of agricultural products. In this regard (i.e. the ratio of cultivated lands to the total geographical expansion of the area), East Azerbaijan has occupied the 12th grade of all provinces. In addition, after those provinces of Khorasan, Fars and Khuzestan, it has got the vastest cultivated lands. Investigation of combination of occupations based on the results from general census of population and housing in 1390 reveals the fact that the agriculture contribution of the province is about 21.3% which is above its average (19%) in the country. However, comparing different counties of the province we can find dramatic differences in terms of agricultural activities and its related sub-sectors. In this study, we use several indicators to investigate spatial inequalities associated with the development of agricultural sector in different counties of East Azerbaijan separated into several parts of agriculture, garden and animal husbandry and the mechanization level.

Methodology

Considering the subject of the study, it is an analytical- descriptive one. Different counties of East Azerbaijan Province identified based on administrative - political divisions, have been chosen as statistical population of this survey. To determine its underdevelopment level and inequalities, 28 indicators have been used in four different sectors including agriculture, garden, animal husbandry and mechanization that can be observed with reference to the statistical evidence of agricultural background in East Azerbaijan. In this survey, the method of factor analysis in SPSS environment has been used to identify modulation index and its factors to be used as input in numerical taxonomy method. Finally, using hierarchical clustering method, these counties were classified according to the factor of clustering development rankings. This part of information was later appeared as a plan in the environment of GIS software. Indicators consist of: (1) Agriculture indicators: The ratio of irrigated lands to the total area of lands, method of operation by vine crops, forage crops, vegetables and cucurbits, industrial products, cereals, grains, irrigated and rain-fed wheat, irrigated and rain-fed barely. (2) Garden indicators: method of operation by garden products, dried fruits, stone fruits, granulated and pome fruits. (3) Mechanization indicators: the ratio of tractors, electro pumps, motor pumps, combine, tiller and distributed fertilizer to agricultural lands. (3) Animal husbandry indicators: The ratio of sheep and lamb, large animals, meat production, chicken production, egg production and milk production to the rural population.

Discussion and Conclusion

Using statistic reports of agricultural activities in East Azerbaijan Province in 2010, we could make the standardization process of 28 indicators in the forum of four main parts consisting of 11 indicators in agriculture sector, 5 in garden sector, 6 in mechanization sector and other 6 in husbandry sector. Factor analysis was done on each of these sectors in the environment of SPSS software that reduced them into 3,1,2,2 factors in the same order that were later used as inputs of the numerical taxonomy method. Classification of the counties was done based on development rankings of each sector. Finally, the statistical method of cluster analysis was applied to the counties of the province to be gotten classified in four clusters by identifying homogeneous cities. Counties found in the first class include Malekan, Bonab, Miyane, then in the second class: Shabestar, Maraghe, BostanAbad, Tabriz, Oscoo, Azarshahr, Ajabshir, in the third class: Sarab, Hashtrood, Ahar, Marand, Haris, and finally in the fourth class: Jolfa, Varzaghan, Kalibar and Charoimagh. Agriculture is an economic sector itself, as it is said that economic growth would be impossible in the absence of agriculture growth. Nowadays, by using accurate scientific researches as an inspiration source and investigating environment potentials and capabilities of every area we can achieve comprehensive agricultural development and principles. A remarkable, tremendous difference can be found in agricultural activities of different areas and counties of the province. East Azerbaijan is made of a half developed western and a half underdeveloped eastern part. The half developed western consists of great centers of population with a high rate of civilization, medium and large industrial centers, main centers of service activities and a large amount of agriculture and garden products. Whereas, in eastern half despite its mineral-tourist potentials, agriculture still continues in its traditional form of rain fed with industrial workshops which are small and scattered and small villages of low population in the suburb of small towns. Developed counties are provided with strong communication networks, especially in the route of railways or in the nearby area. On one hand there are low land slopes in the west of the province and on the ther hand vast and fertile plains like Tabriz and Maraghe have changed the place to a natural absorption for doing more activities on. While the Eastern half is mountainous with more potentials in livestock and animal husbandry than the Western part.

The Analysis of Non-Farm Entrepreneurship in Improving the Quality of Life in the Villages Case: Villages Located in Shandiz Area, Binaloud County

Hamdollah Sojasi Qeidari

Introduction

Rural areas face various challenges in Iran; one of the most important challenges isb economic weakness. Since entrepreneurship can remove many major challenges (such as unemployment, low level of income, lack of economic diversification) in rural areas and it can affect other aspects of rural life positively, entrepreneurship and job creation are the most important plans and strategies for rural improvement to resolve economic challenges. Entrepreneurship in village leads to job creation, increase in income, wealth creation, improvement of quality of life and it is also helpful for local people participating in economic activities. The agriculture section in most third world countries cannot provide enough job opportunities and income to meet the needs of rural areas with high population density as a result of low level of productivity of land and labor, so non-farm entrepreneurship is considered as the suitable strategy to improve job creation and increase rural income. Promoting diversification of economic activities in rural areas especially in non-farm section leads to a profound impact on the creation of entrepreneurial thinking in rural areas; Since for landless people or those who own a small size of land, earning farming income and this amount of income does not meet their needs, non-farm entrepreneurship and as a result diversification of non-farm economy (or related to farm economy) can create job and income for them. Undoubtedly, job creation in non-farm section prevents labor force as the major economic capital from exiting the villages which is the main reason of rural-to-urban migration growth and many socio-economic problems. Based on this fact, this study aims to analyze the importance of non-farm entrepreneurshipb in improving the quality of life in villages of Shandiz area and also to determine that in which dimensions and aspects of rural life considered by entrepreneurs in their plans, the farm based entrepreneurship activities have the most impacts. The research questions include "how much farm based entrepreneurship activities could improve the quality of life in the villages in economic, social and environmental dimensions?" and "in which dimensions do entrepreneurship activities have the most impacts?"

Methodology

According to its aim, this is a practical and developmental study and regarding its methodology it is descriptive-analytic one. For theoretical modeling, descriptive and documentary methods have been used by reviewing theoretical literature related to rural development, quality of life, entrepreneurship and non-farm entrepreneurship studies. So, the criteria and indicators have been chosen according to theoretical frameworks and works done by other researches and also on the basis of its aim. The analytic unit in this study is the non-farmer householder who participates in creative non-farming activities in studied villages. Residents of villages in Shandiz area, Binaloud County, including Shandiz and Abardeh villages with population of 19667 in 1390 are the study population. According to the conducted field study, among 18 villages which their populations are more than 20 households, 6 villages with the population of 13217 are considered as study samples and in these villages non-farm entrepreneurship activities have been done more than other villages. To study the impacts of non-farm entrepreneurship activities in the studied area, samples should be chosen according to the number of households in the region; regarding the total number of households, sample households in the sample villages are 3776 households and as a result, according to Cochran Formula (using 0.06 margin of error) 249 households have been chosen to complete the questionnaires regarding the householder's point of view. The first level of sample selection among householders in the studied area is according to an analogy between villages and the second level is random selection. Eventually, information extracted from the questionnaires has been analyzed using statistical methods (Pearson, Spearman and Chi-square correlation tests to the case with independent group and step by step regression analysis) performed in SPSS.

Discussion and Conclusion

It was found that, non-farm activities have various impacts on economic, social and environmental dimensions. Chi-square test to the case with independent group was performed to analyze villager's point of view regarding non-farm entrepreneurship activities; for most indicators, a meaningful level of significance less than 0.05 and the relationship has been proven. For assessment of economic impacts of entrepreneurship on quality of life, indicators such as income, employment status and economic justice have been used. The relative distribution for answering question suggests that the average value of economic changes is 3.46. This average is defined in the range from 1 to 5 and it shows that the economic status is higher than the average level. For assessment of social impacts, indicators such as social capital, social participation, population stability, satisfaction of access and personal welfare have been used. The average of social changes is 3.06 and it shows that social status is higher than the average level. The average value of environmental changes is 3.38 and it shows that the environmental status is higher than the average level. It has to be mentioned that for assessment of non-farm entrepreneurship activities, some indicators have been used including good job opportunities, government investment, product quality, education, availability and changeability of land use. The average value of non-farm entrepreneurship activities is 3.41 which show this status is higher than the average. In conclusion, it can be said that non-farm entrepreneurship activities improve the quality of life in economic, social and environmental dimensions.

Effective Factors Contributing to the Non-Repayment of Keshavarzi bank Facilities by Farmers Case: Ilam County

Roya Eshraghi Samani

Introduction

The lack of investment in agriculture system of Iran, especially in family farmingoperation, has made this system vulnerable to natural and unnatural disasters andhazards. In this way, Keshavarzi bank is one of the institutions that plays a critical role in financing the agriculture system. In order to meet credit needs of farmers, Keshavarzi bank makes use of two main sources of saving mobilization and installment collection of due-date credit granted to the farmers. Due to the small amount of savings of this bank, compared with others, installment collection of due-date credit granted to farmers is the main financial resource to fulfill the desires of credit applicants. The nonrepayment of facilities or making delays in refunds will result in disturbance in fulfilling bank commitments. Any negligence in on-time repayment of due-date credits by farmers will cause in yield decline of collecting granted credits and financial resources, consequently. Therefore, regarding the on-time collection of granted credits as a main issue in the surviving of credit institutions together with the ever-growing rate of nonrepayment in Keshavarzi bank and high dependency of financial resources on collected credits, investigating effective factors contributing to the non-repayment of bank facilities is something essential. Due to the significance of credit granted by Keshavarzi bank and its non-repayment as one of the main reasons of the limitations applied in farming facilities in many countries, lots of researches have been done in this field to find a way and solve the existing problems. In these researches several issues related to the effectiveness of repaying agriculture loans have been taken into consideration to illustrate an appropriate approach for making well-planned decisions in coping with problems like this. Generally, researches indicate that there are different factors affecting non-repayment of facilities by Keshavarzi bank which can be classified in the context of economic, technical, financial or social features or in job specifications or personal ones.

Methodology

This is an applied research which consists of quantitative nature and among those of non-experimental ones in terms of degree of the control of variables. Data collecting has been done in the same way as surveys. Statistical population including borrowers of several branches of Keshavarzi bank (N= 360) in Ilam county. Determining the size of samples, Krejcie and Morgan table has been used according to which the sample size of 186 people has been calculated. To get the samples for questioner accomplishment, stratified sampling method has been used. The questionnaire face validity (based on the comments by faculty members of Azad University) and reliability of the research tools have been determined by the use of Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α = 82%). The variable correlation has been calculated using Eta test. Effective factors contributing to the non-repayment of granted credits have been analyzed by stepwise forward method of logistic regression. Meanwhile, the data were processed and analyzed using SPSS statistical software.

Discussion and Conclusion

According to the survey, a vast majority of the granted funds has been devoted to livestock activities. These activities, considering the geographical and climate conditions of Ilam County, is among the investing priorities of its authorities and inhabitants. Moreover, the range of credit granted to most borrowers (66.6 %) has been from 5 to 30 million Tomans. The average time of repayment in the sampling case was about 6.91 years regarding 82.25% of borrowers repaying them in a period of 5 to 10 years. Present findings indicate that 63.44% of borrowers haven’t repaid their loans yet. It is only about 36.56% of borrowers who have paid them on-time. The results of the correlation coefficient test on dependent variables of repaying status and independent variables suggest that there is a high impact connection between the amount of personal deposits at the time of taking the loan and the amount of credit, referral number assigned to the bank to take the loan, and non-repayment of the granted credits. Stepwise forward method of logistic regression has been used here to investigate effective factors contributing to the non-repayment of granted credits. Variables including the proceeds of agricultural activities, the amount of bank profit from granted credits, the referral number assigned to the bank to take the loan, the amount of installment, the amount of personal deposits at the time of taking the loan, any record of loan taking, the pay-off period and the supervising quality of bank inspectors were separately entered into the regression in seven different steps to predict about 0.768 percent of changes of dependent variable ( probability of non-repayment of granted facilities). Additionally, based on results from the regression analysis, any increase in the bank profits from received facilities, the referral number assigned to the bank to take the loan and the amount of taken credits will cause in the increase of the probability of non-repayment of the taken loan. As on the other hand, increasing of annuity from agricultural activities, the amount of personal deposit at the time of taking the loan, the pay-off period, the number of inspectors' supervision and record of loan taking will lead to the decrease of the probability of non-repayment.

Social and Economic Consequences of Domestic Occupations of Rural Women in the County of West Islam-Abad

Ahmad Yaghoubi Farani

Introduction

Nowadays, the importance of female's participation in the realization of development objectives is remarkable and in the absence of participations like this, there will be no way ahead of development. This is a matter of particular consideration in the rural and agricultural sectors which attracts attention as one of the essential factors contributing to the sustainable development of these sectors. Many countries have experienced entrepreneurship as one of the most effective procedures to decrease the rate of unemployment. As it helped developed and developing countries to survive from unemployment and then lead women to reveal their skills and abilities in different fields and step into the space of business to make massive changes in economic development of the world. Considering restrictions on investing made by governments, it is a good way to confront the intricate of women's unemployment through the entrepreneurship of domestic occupations. Statistics show that the rate of economic exposure and unemployment in Kermanshah Province is about 38% and 13%, respectively. Furthermore, limited economic participation of rural females in spite of the importance of their self-occupation to facilitate the achievement of sustainable development is of great importance to create appropriate circumstances, equipment and infrastructures that make them empowered. Since rural women of West Islam-Abad are about the 45% of the total population of the area that play a key role in the political, social and economic development of the county, together with the great impact of domestic occupations on the increase of entrepreneurship opportunities and the improvement of occupation status, we have set out the research to identify social and economic consequences of domestic occupations of rural females in West Islam-Abad.

Methodology

This research has been done by the aim of investigating social and economic impacts of domestic occupations of rural women in the County of West Islam-Abad. Statistical population consists of 200 members of occupied women in rural areas of West IslamAbad among them only 140 have been accidentally chosen by Krejcie & Morgan sampling table. Required data have been collected by questionnaires whose content validity has been confirmed by professors and experts. Assessing the reliability of the questionnaires, a number of 30 questionnaires were done in the process of pretesting by rural women and the average number of Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated about α = 88% for different parts of the questionnaires.

Discussion and Conclusion

According to the results of factor analysis, the most important economic impacts of domestic occupation of rural women on their life can be possibly classified into four general groups including the improvement of a family economic status, promotion of economic knowledge and awareness, making more economic independency, increase in the power of risks and innovation. Then the cumulative variance determined by these four was the extent of 64.45%. It should also be mentioned that the most important social consequences of these occupations on the life of rural women is made of five main factors of increase in their social and technical skills, tendency to get information, development of institutional communications and development of team activities which the cumulative variance of 68.44% was determined by them. Women consider a significant contrast between job and family values that sometimes the integration of job duties and home tasks cause lots of problems in their responsibility and job performances. Because, based on the rural area culture, everything related to the children and family needs is among those inevitable affairs of women. In this research, several suggestions are getting showed to help create and improve the opportunities for participating in domestic occupations and entrepreneurship by rural women regarding to the rural areas culture and circumstances. The most important suggestions are to organize training courses in rural areas that can make changes in their cultural attitudes toward women's capabilities, doing things to increase rural women's knowledge and awareness, making facilities to create and improve their participation in domestic occupations and the recognition and introduction of successful entrepreneur women as role models to motivate the owners of domestic occupations to make progress in business.

Assessment Pattern of Rural Environmental Sustainability Case: Shervineh Village in Javanrud County

Lida Sharafi

Introduction

In recent years, increase in demand as a result of world population and industrialization lead to demand for the use of natural resources. This issue causes environmental problems and challenges. Therefore, sustainable development is considered by different researchers. Sustainable development has various dimensions such as economic, social, cultural, political and environmental ones. Regarding modern trend in sustainable development, all dimensions are considered in relation to the issue of environmental dimension of development and the environment protection and its resources issue is one of the important dimensions in sustainable development. Other developmental dimensions have direct or indirect relation to this dimension. Considering this, rural regions have high degree of dependency to these natural resources to supply their basic needs. Therefore, to achieve national development objectives, environmental sustainability in these regions is of great importance to prevent desertification, confront with dangers caused by drought, prevent soil erosion and degradation, maintain natural resources and also microclimates. However, in many villages of the country, the environment is facing severe threats such as desertification, deforestation and destruction of meadows, agricultural land-use change, groundwater decline, and landslide and so on. So, regarding to existing problems in the villages of the country and environmental challenges, the necessity and importance of the environmental status assessment in rural regions is obvious before any planning. Accordingly, this study has been done to present a pattern for assessment of rural environmental sustainability in Shervineh village.

Methodology

This study is a descriptive correlational survey. All Shervineh residents took part in this study (N=840), in which 264 people were chosen randomly according to Bartlett Table as the statistical samples. For data collection, questionnaires had been used in this study. On the whole, 185 questionnaires had been collected and analyzed. The validity of questionnaire has been determined by many specialists in the fields like rural development and environmental field and the content validity of the questionnaire has been confirmed. To determine the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's alfa test has been used in which the reliability coefficient of 90% is achieved. Data analysis has been done by the use of SPSS 16 and LISREL 8.8 and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Discussion and Conclusion

The results of factor analysis shows that six factors (implementation of environmental plans in the village, participation of all villagers, contribution of people and local institutions and also national organization supporting the environmental issues, environmental beliefs, training necessary reactions in the case of destructive activities against environment, having prior experiences and indigenous knowledge of the rural environment) are effective in environmental sustainability assessment. Each of these factors is discussed according to their importance in environmental sustainability. Participation of all villagers is a necessary and an important factor to achieve rural environmental sustainability. In this regard, findings by Golshiri and Saraee (2010), Ahmadvand and Nooripour (2010) and Masika & Joekes (1997) showed that promoting public participation in the process of development, protection, restoration and sustainable utilization of natural and environmental resources are important to achieve a sustainable environmental development. One of the indicators in assessment of environmental sustainability is indigenousknowledge and prior experiences of rural environment which are confirmed by factor analysis. In fact, indigenous knowledge is suitable for environment management and this is because of knowledge coming out of the natural environment of the region. Another factor is environmental beliefs and values (ethics) of villagers which provides a base to development of environmental sustainability. In this regard, findings by Menatizadeh and Zamani (2012), and Ogunkan (2010) showed that ethical norms are the factors which have the most impressions on the formation process of environmental sustainability attitude. Contribution of groups, local institutions and national organizations supporting environmental issues is a factor which provides a base to environmental sustainability. This findings are confirmed by Hosseini (2002) and Sadough Vanini et al (2008) studies. According to these researchers' findings, to achieve environmental sustainability, local institution's activities are needed. Factor analysis results showed that implementation of environmental plans in the village is necessary for the environmental sustainability assessment. Various studies (Mozafar et.al (2008); Safaeeyan et.al (2002); Motiee Langeroudi and Yari (2010)) showed that implementation of development plans caused negative environmental impacts. This is the case, because the codification and implementation of these plans should be the result of studies by various specialists meanwhile plan makers and plan executors act according to available information and superficial observations. One of the indicators in environmental sustainability assessment is holding educational workshops to disscuss consequences of destructive activities against environment. In this case, we should know that one of the best strategies to overcome environmental challenges is training and educating human force with desired environmental attitude and corresponded to sustainability. In this field, Lichtenberg & Zimmerman (1999) and Abbaspour et.al (2003) believed that getting knowledge and information from different sources is effective on environmental behavior.

Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts of Hegmatan Cement Company in Shahanjari Village

Fatemeh Kiyani

Introduction

On one hand, economic development as a fundamental section in every country's policies has a close relation to industry and technology, and on the other hand it is related to environmental pollutions. Considering the fundamental role of industry in the process of development in developing countries, the relation between industrial activities and the rate of pollution caused by industry section are of great importance. According to potential and capacities of cement industry, it can causes a tremendous improvement and flourish in terms of other "requisite" and "prerequisite" activities as well as its critical role in the case of the "volume" and the "value" of non-oil export, however, to reach these economic benefits, environmental damages caused by cement companies are inevitable. These damages include air pollution, water pollution and pollution of underground water in the region and so on. Emissions from the cement industry include particles, compounds of carbon, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, among them particles are more important because they are more produced and emitted in the environment.

Methodology

This study is a descriptive-analytical survey, and questionnaires had been used as the data collection method. The population in this study includes 2300 residents of Shahanjari village, according to Morgan's Table, 175 people had been chosen randomly as the study population. Questionnaires as the tool of data collection are divided to four parts and include environmental, agricultural, social-cultural and economic issues to assess impacts of Cement Company on environment and economic (21 variables). For data analysis, Frequency Distribution Tables, Average Statistics, Factor Analysis method and Correlation Coefficient had been used.

Discussion and Conclusion

Increase in regional employment rate and also economic development is the important positive impacts of Cement Company in this region. Of course, Cement Company have negative impacts on the region including destruction of a large part of agricultural lands in the village, yield decline of agricultural production and increase in the number of people with respiratory diseases. Although, farming is the main occupation, it is also severely affected by the company using up the water resources in the region and agriculture is confronted to the decline in production. Certainly, economic impacts of Cement Company are more than these and other positive economic impacts of Cement Company include increase in facilities and services in the region, more opportunities to get second job in the region, and improvement of the villagers' income. From a social point of view, other considered issues as the result of the construction of this company are residents' satisfaction, improvement of rural roads, decrease in rural-urban migration which have positive impacts in the region on the long term and this leads to population stability and avoiding irregular migration. In conclusion, it can be said that on one hand, Cement Company had a lot of positive impacts, on the other hand it caused reduction of farmers' income which is the direct result of Cement Company location, farming is encountered with some problems, it reduces green area expansion in the region and most of farmers are not satisfied of these conditions.

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Extended Abstract