Journal of Geography and Regional Development
Year:2007 | Volume:- | Issue:8|Papers Count:10

In the Literature of development and planning, “evaluation” is considered as one of the necessities of this process. Without this process, not only planning and decision-making will not be completed but also it will omit the dynamic elements from the optimized decision making and development feedback processes. Taking the importance of this issue into account, and revising and betterment of the future plans, we should admit that evaluation is much more important than what was before. Although the impact of these projects can be either positive or negative, the aim of this research is to evaluate the effects of Imam Khomeini Emdad Committee in Nowbandegan and central parts of Fasa. This will help to identify the effectiveness of the above said plans in development of the region, particularly from the point of view of increase in participation. The assumption of this paper is to find out a meaningful relation between implemented plans of Imam Khomeini Emdad Committee and the participation of villagers. Imam Khomeini Emdad Committee is one of the foundations that conduct self-sufficiency programs including services, agricultural and industrial plans in Iranian rural areas. The methodology used in this paper is descriptive and analytical. Using Panel Method, the living conditions of the villagers is studied before and after the execution of the plans. The results of the research indicate that the assumption is 95% acceptable.

In order to find suitable regions for the cultivation of barberry in the southern parts of Khorasan, the researchers have analyzed the following features including daily data of rain, temperature and relative humidity for the years 1985 to 2003, different maps of TIN, slope, cultivation, land use, soil and vegetation. The classification and grading of the sites was carried out by Spatial Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The results showed that AHP method is a precise and feasible method for weighing. Spatial tools of GIS environment speeded the research process. The suitable areas identified in this research, are much more than the existing lands used for this product. This improves the achievements of the research and brings hope to the farmers and managing officials of the region for the growing agriculture and economy.

This paper consists of two parts. The first section describes the index and process of globalization and presents Kof and A.T. Kearney models and index. It also shows the situation of Iran in the process of globalization. The results of this section indicate that based on the above mentioned index, Iran does not have a good situation in the globalization process (Iran’s position is the lowest among 62 countries). The second part of the article, presents the experience of some countries like China, India and some small European cities in the globalization process. The results of this part show that the cities are sub-systems of their countries. The more each country integrates in the global community, the better the cities of the country can move towards globalization. The results of the research show that Iran has faced many problems in the process of globalization. The efforts for creating free zones to connect the country to globalization process have not only started with a delay, but due to structural problems, it has not even been successful. Iranian cities also face serious challenges such as extensive governmental control on economic, social, information and cultural sectors and lack of foreign investments .

The writers of this paper have studied land uses of the city of Ilam on the basis of its present and future situation in a comprehensive and detailed plan from 1993 to 2003. The main methodology used in this research, is the comparative study of the urban per capita and the main land uses area of the city of Ilam. The results of the study showed that during this decade, parks and residential lands used for health and sport had undesired situation both from urban per capita and urban areas. On the other hand, some other land uses had desirable situation. These are educational lands, cultural-religious, and transportation and trade lands. This situation shows lack of balance and harmony between urban lands uses that result from problematic urban planning. So, urban planners should consider all the physical, social, economic, cultural, political and geographical factors in land uses planning, so that this process turns successful.

In the study of rural areas of Iran, lack of qualitative analysis of functional distribution especially high order services is quiet obvious. One of the outcomes of this analysis is challenging the location, which has often taken place in the form of ozalid approach. The present study has reached important results through the analysis of the growth processes of locating and calculating the problems of benefiting from the high order services between 1966 to 2006, using the descriptive analytical, continuous-temporal methods and also the rapid rural appraisal in the villages of Mashhad. The results include the presence of a meaningful growth at privileged areas, the vast and meaningful diversity of 13 sub-districts (dehestan) concerning the level of receiving the services (quantity aspect) and the difficulty of getting access (quality aspect) and most important of all lack of a meaningful relationship between the two main variables of the study, i.e. the level of receiving services and the problem of accessibility to high order services. Concerning the location, the sub-districts of Toos, Darzab, Kardeh and Tabadkan (all are located in the central district) Sarjam and Abravan and from the point of view of the kind of services high schools health centers and banks, these areas suffer the highest level of problem of accessing to these services. Therefore the rapid execution of the ratification by the Supreme Council of Urbanization and Architecture concerning the classification of rural settlements through a participial approach is highly recommended.

Spatial organizations of each region are evolved through the activity of its settlement network. The formation procedure of settlement network is affected by the natural environment, social and economical structure, political and historical events. Natural environment, social and economical structure of the city of Talesh, has not permitted the permanent settlement and urbanism in this region. Lack of appropriate roads between human units of the region is considered as one of the most important obstacles of spatial unity of the region, so that the new settlement network has been formed around the roads that were constructed during the Second World War and connected all the human districts of the region together. Thus, the first real city of the region and consequently rural markets were established at the nodes of the road and the river basin of the area. Rural markets developed based on the population of each district and the rural districts changed to small cities with an efficient geographical situation and productivity. As a result, a hierarchical system was established and formed the settlement network and spatial organization of the region. But the concentration of population and economical activities concentrated in an asymmetrical aspect, in the outskirts of the mentioned road resulted in the spatial imbalance of the region. As a result, planning and development plans of the market centers in the rural districts and cities of the region are considered as a vital and necessary process.

Natural and environmental conditions of the province of East Azerbaijan has caused the concentration of the majority of its population in certain geographical places such as valleys, foot of the hills and limited fertile plains. The increase of population together with the expansion of urban industrial centers means greater pressure to these spaces and serious treats to the environment. These conditions are more perceptible in green valleys near the city of Tabriz where destruction of agricultural lands apart from economic damages, causes ecological imbalances in this metropolitan area. This paper evaluates the impact of the increase of population and settlement expansion on the destruction of agricultural lands and environment. Based on the findings of a research entitled: “Patterns of Oskoo valley settlements and arrangement with special reference to the environment,” the writers of the article found that, Oskoo valley is crucially important for the ecology of the region and it is considered as one of the natural regions of Tabriz area. The valley contains 4800 hectares of lands and a population of 40743. It includes two towns and six villages. According to the findings of the research, during a period of thirteen years from 1989 to 2002, 12 percent is added to the population of the area and 77 percent to the constructed areas. In other words, during this period, an increase in the area of land under construction has been much faster than that of the number of population. Also there has been a considerable decline in the area of agricultural lands in favor of residential and other non-agricultural uses. If the process of converting the agricultural lands continues the naturalness and the beauty of the region will be totally destroyed in the near future and the area will encounter an environmental crisis.

In the recent decades, urbanization has affected social, economical, cultural, political and physical aspects of human life-style. Presentation of sustainable development as one of the goals of the third millennium is derived from the effects of cities on earth and on different aspects of human life. Undoubtedly, talking about sustainability and sustainable development would be impossible without paying attention to cities and urbanization. Cities are considered as the main factors of unsustainability; and urban sustainability and global sustainability are actually unique concepts. Considering the complexity of the nature of the cities and their different aspects of affecting on various subjects, identifying the main factors is necessary for achievement of urban sustainability. The writer of this article tries to explain the indicators that are of great importance in urban and global sustainability.

Although “rural tourism” is a new term in tourism industry, its root and origin goes back to the first travels of man. This is because of his rural life after cave dwelling and nomadic life. When man became conscious of his free time, started traveling and paved the way for rural tourism. Tourism industry in Iran is still at its beginning stages. There are still a lot of plans and strategies to be applied in this industry. Tourism industry in Iran became the center of attention after the change in the system of the country and setting directions towards socio-economical development plans of the country. Concerning the Islamic governmental system of the country and the declaration of many authorities, tourism in Iran is a religious, cultural and historical one. In order to have a comprehensive rural tourism planning, the following issues should be considered; advertisement and promulgation of the original and virgin areas, classification of the tourists who enter the country based on their incentives and training local guides. The success of each rural plan depends on the long term plans, programs and dedication of budgets to the related organizations.

Using the outputs of Global Circulation Models (GCM) has nowadays developed in meteorological and climatology studies and could compensate more computational vacuity. The resolution of global and local circulation models have recently increased, but none of these models could predict actual weather in station and micro scale. Thus, several methods are presented for using outputs of these models. These outputs are divided into statistical and dynamic groups and are known as Down Scaling Methods. In this paper, the researcher has tried to recognize and select the best climate scenario that fits the observation data of the selected area (stations of Khorasan Razavi Province) and using special statistical and dynamic methods to produce optimum data that fits the actual data. Then, by Down Scaling then, we could extract improved forecast data. Finally, by using Standard Precipitation Index (SPI), we can present drought status in future.