JOURNAL OF RURAL RESEARCH
Year:2011 | Volume:2 | Issue:1 (5)|Papers Count:7

Introduction: Spatial planning concepts have become prominent in discussions and strategies that focus on regional and rural development. At the heart of this policy framework is an understanding that competition between regions is one of the primary driving forces influencing social and economic development and hence cohesion. It is also understood that some regions have greater advantages in terms of their location and resources than others. Recognition of the fact that resources and conditions for social and economic development vary spatially, gave rise to the concept of territorial cohesion. Rural point is domain in Iran. Although the term rural is frequently used, it is rarely defined. This issue is compounded by the choice of spatial units that form the basis for analysis. The literature on the topic of rural development is populated by uncritical use of terms such as rural regions, rural areas and rurality ….

Introduction: Tourism has recently been introduced and recognized as one of the strategies for rural development and poverty reduction especially in developing countries and been implemented and proved successful in some areas. Tourism development in rural areas is seen as an agent both for rural economic regeneration and as a way of contributing to cultural and environmental conservation. These researchers contend that tourism has many advantages over other economic sectors, making it an effective tool for poverty alleviation. These advantages include: providing opportunities for linkages with other local industries and livelihood activities, thus increasing the scope of local participation, being able to build upon a wide resource base especially on natural and cultural capital which are assets to the poor despite the few export and diversification options usually they access to, being labor intensive and small scale and opportunities to employ women and addressing gender inequality….

Introduction: Nowadays, rural sustainability is one of the main issues of sustainable development programs in developing countries such as Iran. Of course not only it is useful to know rural sustainability criteria, but it is also more important to evaluate and prioritize them. Thus, based on a holistic view, this study carried out to categorize rural sustainability criteria more detailed than existent literature and then to prioritize the supposed criteria using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) ….

Introduction: Today exploiting the participation and the abilities of local people, particularly rural population, toward rural development has been considered as one of the effective strategies toward sustainable and comprehensive development of rural areas. The most important tool to achieve this goal is establishing NGOs based on the needs as well as abilities of different groups living in the villages, in diverse and essential issues of indigenous and local environment, in order to perform rural developmental programs. These organizations, in economic and social Fields-due to avoid a complex public sector bureaucracy and profit making of private sector-made it possible to in such areas as fighting poverty and hunger, environmental protection, forestry, increase awareness General welfare, health, community and family, according to Women and Children, redacting social damages and act Successful than the private and public sectors.

Introduction: Natural hazards as recurring phenomenon have always existed in human life and will in the future, too. Nowadays Natural hazards occur throughout the world, but their impacts have been increasing and are generally much greater in developing countries than in developed ones. Earthquake is a kind of natural hazard that has the most damages for humankind. Earthquakes pose inevitable risks to everyone wholives on this planet. It is known that approximately 20% of the world’s populations live in seismically active zones. Furthermore, 90% of that population will be at risk in developing countries. Among the developing countries, because of the environmental structure, Iran is very vulnerable to natural hazards. In a brief look at the map of the earthquakes in Iran, we considered that most populated (rural and urban settlements) are located in the Zagros and Alborz piedmonts, which in terms of the threat from Earthquake disasters have relatively high vulnerability. Approximately, 32% of the Iran areas, 70% of population, and 67% of gross domestic production (GDP) in these regions are exposed to high risk of earthquake.

Introduction: Sustainability assessment has become an important tool to aid in the shift towards sustainability. However, this is a new and evolving concept and there are very few examples of effective sustainability assessment processes implemented throughout in the world. The concept of sustainable development can be a state of balance between different aspects of development that aims to dispel the needs and improving quality of life of humans. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development to take advantage appropriate resources and create an equal and balanced relationship between human society and nature, purpose program planners and managers of development and rural development is particularly. With the change of development paradigm from traditional and classic approaches to new paradigm of sustainable development, other approaches such as participatory approach, empowerment, capacity building and evaluation literature of planning and management have also changed and compass to strategic planning and management.

Introduction: Information and communication technology (ICT) is now one of the criteria for measuring the economic and industrial development, in a way that it has had significant effects on different aspects of socio-cultural, economic and political life of people and human communities. In this study, the authors have tried to investigate the economic, social and physical effects of ICT centers on rural development in Gorgan as a leading zone in construction of rural ICT centers in Iran. For this purpose, at first step, they assessed the level of rural population access to ICT and the way they could benefit from it. Then the effects of ICT centers on rural development were examined in two main groups of villages: those which had ICT centers, and those which lacked them.