Geography and Environmental Sustainability
Year:2019 | Volume:9 | Issue:31 |Papers Count:7

Introduction The complex intra-urban movements are considered as the manifest characteristics of the cities on the growth; they may lead to socio-economic and physical inequalities in urban areas. In this process, the central areas of the cities are affected more than other ones. Since the old city or the central part of today’ s cities has not been able to upgrade its previous efficient, dynamic, and satisfactory structure to today’ s conditions, it has experienced a reduction in environmental quality and, in the broad sense, decay, deterioration, and blight. As a result, many inhabitants of the initial core of the city would rather move toward new locations in order to get a better life quality. After the movements of old inhabitants, their houses are mostly occupied by low-income and job-seeking immigrants. The undesirable multi-dimensional changes in social and economic structures and their echoes in physical and environmental structures make the social, economic, and physical conditions dominate the urban centers which finally lead to a reduction in the environmental quality and their blight. In accordance with population growth and physical extension, the central part of Tehran has experienced many changes including the movements of original inhabitants and resettled immigrants, changes in the combination and variety of urban land use making them the backup land uses of some of the original ones, coincidence of functional fatigue and physical fatigue, the increase of crime and social harms, and the decrease of the level of public services required by inhabitants. Accordingly, the central part of Tehran has manifested some characteristics and signs of blighted urban areas and, as a result, this has made this part of the city suspicious to a zone with the characteristics of urban blight. Thus, the current study with emphasis on the mental dimension attempts to identify and analyze the factors affecting the formation of urban blight phenomenon in District 3, Region 12 of Tehran City. Materials and Methods This study is mostly based on the initial data resulted from surveying the households using a researcher-made questionnaire; however, the tools of the interview, observation, and the results obtained from the public censuses of population and housing are also used to achieve the required data and information. The statistical society of the study is all the households in District 3, Region 12 of Tehran City (10710 households). The sample size was determined as 200 households according to Cochran formula, although there were challenges like the very low willingness of the residents to participate in research, the various social and security challenges the researchers face in case study area, and the time and financial limitations of the research. The sampling method in the case study area was a simple random method— from the parents or one of the family members older than 16 years old. The single sample T-test was applied to summarize the survey results and compare the averages respectively. Moreover, a factor analysis was employed to reduce the number of independent variables and identify the urban blight dimensions. At the end, the regression analysis was used to identify the factors affecting the formation of urban blight phenomenon in District 3, Region 12 of Tehran City in SPSS software environment. Results and Discussion According to the opinions of respondents and the results of T-test, it can be said with a confidence level of 99% that District 3, Region 12 of Tehran has an undesirable status in most of the studied indices including the existence of vacant houses, ruins, and abandoned lands, privacy and quietness of neighborhood, traffic condition in neighborhood, existence of leisure, recreational, and sports spaces, vitality and dynamism of neighborhood, hope to improve the neighborhood conditions in the future, willingness to reside in neighborhood, and general assessment of inhabitants from neighborhood quality. In addition, by aggregating the indices and creating the final urban blight index, the single-sample T-test was used again for this index. From the obtained results, it can be said— with a confidence level of 95%--that form the local residents’ point of view, their residence place in District 3, region 12 of Tehran has an undesirable status. After validating the blight status according to the mental perceptions of local residents, the current research considers the identification of the factors affecting the formation of urban blight phenomenon in District 3, Region 12 of Tehran. The number of extracted factors is 6 factors based on the eigenvalue criterion and scree plot. These 6 factors express 69. 53% of total variance in data. After determining the dimensions of urban blight, the regression analysis was used by a step-by-step method to identify the factors affecting urban blight in District 3, Region 12, Tehran. The dependent variable in the regression analysis is the final urban blight index, while the independent variables are the 6 factors extracted from the factor analysis. The results obtained from the step-by-step regression analysis show that four factors out of 6 factors extracted from the factor analysis totally express 67. 5% of the urban blight variance in the case study area. Four factors of social characteristics (in the first step), neighborhood physical quality (in the second step), housing quality (in the third step), and social capital (in the fourth step) enter the model respectively which totally express 67% of urban blight variance. Conclusion The research results show that urban blight is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon. Among the various dimensions of blight phenomenon, four factors of social characteristics of the neighborhood, physical quality of the neighborhood, housing quality, and social capital are the most important predictors of urban blight in the case study area. The results of the research can be considered by urban planners, policymakers, and managers as a guide to control urban blight phenomenon and improve the life quality of the residents in District 3, Region 12 of Tehran.

Considering severe water scarcity in current century, integrated water resources management is regarded really necessary in order to sustain water resources and economic development. The present study aims to introduce the optimal planning method of water resource distribution in Bisotun dam (out of river bed) for agriculture, industry and environmental sectors. Biseton reservoir dam is capable for water transformation from Gamasiab River through steal pipe with 3500 lit/s capacity during 6 months (late October to April) considering water supply for agriculture, industry and environment needs in the east of Kermanshah. However, simulation and optimal scenarios were selected using (LINGO) and Water Evaluation and Planning System Programming (WEAP) models considering two scenario; with built dam and its upstream and without them for agriculture, industry and environmental needs. The results revealed that in both scenarios, the transformed water to dam was constant for industry and agriculture 37 and 14 million m3, respectively. In contrast, considering the Biston dam, there is about 2 million m3 surplus water for environmental needs. Thus, the reserved upper stream through Bisotunn dam cause reduction in down discharge flow of Gamasiab River in rainy season which can consequently be allocated about 42 million m3 water for environment sector. Adversely, during dry months, the reserved water from these dams is flowed down stream for environment needs. It is concluded that environmental water needs can be supplied during dry months.

Rural women as the half of population, in addition to doing their duties as a mother and a spouse, play important roles in the sustainable rural development. In fact, the women, as trainers of the next generations, have great impacts on children’ s insight in utilizing resources in rural areas. Therefore, they play a crucial role in achieving rural sustainable development. Unfortunately, despite their hard work in rural communities, their roles in the rural sustainable development is considered less important. So the current paper is trying to study the role of women activities in achieving sustainable rural development in the Ashaqabad, Neyshabour. Research methodology is descriptive analytical method which is based on library studies, field studies and completing questionnaires. The population of the investigation contains all women over 15 years old in Ashagh abad rural district which are 3921 based on the statistics in 2011. The sample size is determined as 384 people using Cochran formula. To analyze the data, the researcher has used one sample t test, Pearson correlation, Prometheus technique. The findings of the research indicate that according to the results of a single sample t-test of women's activity in the agricultural-animal husbandry and industry sector, with the exception of the services secyor, have led to the development of sustainable development in Eshaqabad. Besides, the results of Pearson correlation test show a direct statistically significant relationship among the dimensions of sustainable development. The results of other research indicate that the highest impact of women's employment in rural district was initially studied in the economic sector, then it promotes social indicators and, finally, cultural indicators. The results of Prometheus test also show that among the studied villages, Eshaqabad has the highest rank and Aziziyah village has the lowest rank in terms of sustainable development dimensions.

Mazandaran Province has 15 coastal cities and 337 kilometers of coast line in which there are different kinds of economic-social activities such as agriculture, fishers, customs, residence, and recreational activities. In this province, the existing conflict and competition between named stakeholders for more exploitations of the coast resources and lands has caused serious, widespread disruptions. Therefore, in most regions, coast lands are seized and out of public access and the desirable development of coastal tourism, as the most potential attraction to boost local and small businesses, has been marginalized. In the present study, the “ integrated management” approach, which has been introduced in recent decades and welcomed in many coastal areas is emphasized. An analytical model has been extracted by the help of literature review and previous studies. According to this model, 13 dimensions and 48 indicators for "coastal tourism integrated management" are presented. Using the survey method and completion of 406 questionnaires by four stakeholder groups: public, private, governmental and people-based related to coastal tourism development in Mazandaran province (in the summer and autumn of 1397), the data of the importance and performance of each the integrated coastal tourism management indicators using IBM SPSS. 22 software (computing mean values and performance, T-test with two pairs of samples, and plotting the significance-performance matrix) have been evaluated. To evaluate these data, an IPA (Importance-Performance Analysis) method was used. In three steps, the results illustrate that in spite of the high importance of all dimensions and indicators studied, the importance gap-performance is seen in all of them. This means that the mean values of operations are less than the mean importance of dimensions. Nevertheless, according to the importance-function matrix which divides the dimensions into four quarters, the “ integration of policy-policy integration” is placed in the first quarter, namely maintaining the status quo. The e dimensions of “ stakeholder participation” , “ leadership” , “ organizational relationships” , “ human resources” , “ financial resources” , and “ organizational attitudes” , are at the forefront of attention (the attention paid to the development of coastal tourism Mazandaran province is attracted to improve the current situation, which, despite the average importance, has been evaluated by poor beneficiary groups) and other dimensions of integrated tourism management in Mazandaran province have been located in the second and third quarters of the year.

The importance of rural and agriculture development in Iran's national development is beyond the reach of no one. Agriculture, as the main source of income and job creation, plays an important role in human life and development. Agriculture has played an important role in the rural economy for a long time. Besides, the livelihoods of many villagers have been related to this type of activity. This paper aims to study the agricultural development abilities in Darab County and predict its results on rural development, which is a case study in rural areas of Darab County. The research is a kind of applied one whose method is descriptive-analytic. The data collection is based on using a questionnaire. The statistical population of this research is supervisors of rural households in Darab County (N = 6780), which was selected using Cochran's formula of 323 people through cluster sampling. The criterion for choosing villages is based on the number of agricultural producers. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated as 0. 85 using Cronbach's alpha. Factor analysis has also been used to analyze the data. The results of data analysis showed that the main effect of agriculture on rural development and service and agricultural technology factor was the most important effect of rural development on agricultural situation. The results of data analysis showed that the most important factors of rural development are welfare-service, infrastructure, employment, income and social-educational. Among the factors of rural development, the welfare-service with 24. 22 percent of variance is the highest and socio-educational factor with 8. 313 percent of the least variance in rural development factors. Besides, the results showed that the most important factors for agricultural economic-social development are agricultural infrastructure, access to agricultural inputs, promotion and agricultural combinative factor; in which the socio-economic factor of the farmer with 21. 935 percent of the variance is the highest and compound factor with the least percent, 5. 466, is among the factors of agricultural development.

Coastal aquifers are exposed to the salt-water intrusion, entry of drinking water’ s wastewater by absorbing wells and leakage from the sewage collection network, and climate change, which can increase groundwater pollution. The current study aims to assess the impact of climate change on the content and spatial distribution of total dissolved solids, in Bandar-e-Gaz coastal aquifer located in the northern part of Iran using numerical simulation. The MODFLOW and MT3DMS groundwater models were used to simulate the groundwater level and content and spatial distribution. Besides, TDS and MAPE were applied to determine the precision of the models. The 5th report of IPCC and new emission scenarios were used to investigate climate change impacts on the future changes in content and spatial distribution of TDS. The impacts of climate change on groundwater quality were studied under two optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. The MAPE indicates that this criterion in the calibration and verification period is in the range of (0. 0008-0. 029) and (0. 032-0. 055) which indicates the precision and also the perfect reliability of the model to estimate the content and spatial distribution of the TDS in the coastal aquifer. The results of the emission scenarios show that both scenarios indicate an increase in future precipitation and temperatures. Optimistic and pessimistic scenarios represent a periodic and increase in the mean value of the TDS in future. Moreover, the prediction of the spatial distribution of TDS indicates that the pollution in the northern part of the aquifer will be significantly increased, and the increase in pollution at the aquifer level will not be uniform in the spatial pattern, which can be due to the spatial distribution of residential areas, as well as water extraction wells.

Nowadays environmental issues have been so extended that their reign ends no more to technical problems. So that environmental issues have deep social terms. Citizen participation is one of the most important novel approaches in environmental planning of metropolises. Participatory scenario planning, following Habermas’ s theory of Communicative Action, is considered as one of the new approaches of strategic planning. The active role of citizens in shaping the future of their living environment and social action on reducing future environmental threats through urban environmental protection practices is one of the new approaches to citizen participation. This paper studies participatory scenario planning as a novel tool in strategic planning of urban environment futures studies. The statistical society is district one of Tehran municipality. Sampling is done by quotas and systematic method, according to a compound research methodology and multi-step questionnaire, 80 people were chosen as the statistical society. Analytical data tools were MICMAC and SPSS software and for scenario planning, GBN method and for studying participation rate the Leven and T-Test were applied. The findings of the study represent that the studied district environment is affected by two main different axis of “ optimum management of urban space” and “ citizen participation in environmental planning” which had four scenarios prepared. Moreover, the results also show the meaningful level for the studied groups is less than 0. 05 in three indicators including citizen’ s awareness, environmental behavior and citizenship responsibility. This finding indicates that participatory scenario planning is efficient enough for environmental planning of Tehran’ s district one which can be applied to manage environmental issues in planning centers.