Analysis of the Impact of Environmental Unsustainability on Social Unsustainability in Iran: Tensions and Social Damages Caused by Drought in Rural Areas

Journal of Research and Rural Planning

دوره 11، شماره 4 - شماره پیاپی 39، اسفند 2022، صفحه 1-19   

نوع مقاله: Original Article

شناسه دیجیتال (DOI): 10.22067/jrrp.v11i4.89036

نویسندگان

Hamdollah Sojasi Qeidari^* ؛ Hamid Shayan؛ Zahra Soleymani

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

چکیده

Purpose- Social sustainability, especially in rural areas, is one of the most important goals of policymakers, planners and managers. However, social sustainability in local communities, such as villages, can be challenged through environmental instabilities. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to analyze the tensions and social dangers in rural areas of Neyshabur, one of the provinces of Iran.
Design/methodology/approach- In order to measure the relationship between the independent variable of drought and the dependent variable of social tension, 24 variables were identified in the context of drought, existing tensions and social damage caused by water scarcity in the study area. The required information was collected from documentary studies and also through interviews and questionnaires. One-sample t-test, Pearson correlation, single-variable regression, and VIKOR model were used to analyze the data.
Findings- The results show that there is a relationship between water deficit deduced from drought and 22 social unsustainability variables. Based on the results of the regression test and the amount of obtained beta, respectively, the greatest effects of water shortages deduced from drought was on intensifying rural poverty (0.932), increasing living expenses (0.931), and the destruction of small crop and small cultivation (0.924). Also, the results of the VIKOR model showed that there is a difference between the studied villages in terms of the severity of social tensions.
Originality/value- This study has been promising to focus on the effects of drought and water scarcity as an environmental unsustainability in shaping and exacerbating tensions and social injuries. Therefore, the results of this study can be effective in recognizing the social impacts of environmental changes in geographical areas and countries facing environmental changes.

کلیدواژه‌ها

Environmental Crisis؛ Environmental Changes؛ Social Unsustainability؛ Social Stress؛ Drought؛ Rural Communities

مراجع

1. Adger, W. N. (2006). Vulnerability. Global environmental change, 16(3), 268-281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.02.006
2. Åhman, H. (2013). Social sustainability–society at the intersection of development and maintenance. Local Environment, 18(10), 1153-1166. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2013.788480
3. Alam, G. M. (2017). Livelihood cycle and vulnerability of rural households to climate change and hazards in Bangladesh. Environmental management, 59(5), 777-791. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-017-0826-3.
4. Alston, M., & Kent, J. (2004). Social impacts of drought. Centre for Rural Social Research, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW.
5. Archives of Police in Neyshabur, (2018). The number of disagreements in Neyshabur County. Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran.
6. Arias, P. A., Villegas, J. C., Machado, J., Serna, A. M., Vidal, L. M., Vieira, C., ... & Mejía, Ó. A. (2016). Reducing social vulnerability to environmental change: Building trust through social collaboration on environmental monitoring. Weather, Climate, and Society, 8(1), 57-66. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-15-0049.1.
7. Armenski, T., Stankov, U., Dolinaj, D., Mesaroš, M., Jovanović, M., Pantelić, M., & Ćosić, Đ. (2014). Social and economic impact of drought on stakeholders in agriculture. Geographica Pannonica, 18(2), 34-42. https://doi.org/10.5937/GeoPan1402034A
8. Barbier, E. B. (2010). Poverty, development, and environment. Environment and Development Economics, 15(6), 635-660. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X1000032X
9. Barua, A., Katyaini, S., Mili, B., & Gooch, P. (2014). Climate change and poverty: building resilience of rural mountain communities in South Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya, India. Regional environmental change, 14(1), 267-280. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-013-0471-1
10. Basher, R. (2006). Global early warning systems for natural hazards: Systematic and people-centred. Trans. Roy. Soc., 364A, 2167–2182, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2006.1819.
11. Berry, H., Kelly, B., Hanigan, I., McMichael, A., Welsh, J., & Kjellstrom, T. (2008). Rural mental health impacts of climate change. paper commissioned for the Garnaut Climate Change Review (interim report to the Australian, state and territory governments of Australia), Garnaut Review Secretariat, Melbourne.
12. Brooks, N., Adger, W.N., & Kelly, P.M. (2005). The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global Environmental Change 15: 151–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2004.12.006
13. Ceccarelli, S., & Grando, S. (2004). Drought as a challenge for the plant breeder. Plant growth regulation, 20(2), 149-155. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00024011
14. Coates, B., Johnston, J., & Knox, P. (1977). Geography and inequality. oxford university press.
15. De Silva, M. M. G. T., & Kawasaki, A. (2018). Socioeconomic Vulnerability to Disaster Risk: A Case Study of Flood and Drought Impact in a Rural Sri Lankan Community. Ecological Economics, 152, 131-140.‏ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.05.010
16. Dinkelman, T. (2015). Long run health repercussions of drought shocks: Evidence from South African homelands(No. w21440). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12361
17. Edwards, B., Gray, M., & Hunter, B. (2009). A sunburnt country: The economic and financial impact of drought on rural and regional families in Australia in an era of climate change. Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 12, 109–131. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/51134
18. Edwards, B., Gray, M., & Hunter, B. (2015). The impact of drought on mental health in rural and regional Australia. Social Indicators Research, 121(1), 177-194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0638-2
19. Eizenberg, E., & Shilon, M. (2016). Pedagogy for the new planner: Refining the qualitative toolbox. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 43(6), 1118-1135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265813515604477
20. FAO. (2000). New Dimension in Water Scarcity, Water Society and Ecosystem Service the 21st Century. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Land and Water Development Division, Rome.
21. FAO. (2012). Syrian Arab Republic Joint Rapid Food Security Needs Assessment (JRFSNA). FAO Rep., 26 pp. [Available online at http://www.fao.org/giews/english/otherpub/JRFSNA_Syrian2012.pdf.
22. Femia, F., & Werrell, C. (2012). Syria: Climate change, drought and social unrest. Center for Climate and Security, 29, 2-5. https://climateandsecurity.org/wp/syria_climate-change_drought-and-social-unrest.pdf
23. Fontain, J., Wilcock, W. S., Foustoukos, D. E., & Butterfield, D. A. (2009). A Si‐Cl geothermobarometer for the reaction zone of high‐temperature, basaltic‐hosted mid‐ocean ridge hydrothermal systems. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 10(5).‏ https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GC002407
24. Fujii, T. (2016). Climate change and vulnerability to poverty: An empirical investigation in rural Indonesia. In The Asian ‘Poverty Miracle’(pp. 118-146). Edward Elgar Publishing.‏ https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785369155.00012
25. Gautam, D. (2017). Assessment of social vulnerability to natural hazards in Nepal. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 17(12), 2313-2320. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-2313-2017
26. Gleick, P. H. (2014). Water, drought, climate change, and conflict in Syria. Weather, Climate, and Society, 6(3), 331-340. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1
27. Gray, C., & Mueller, V. (2012). Drought and population mobility in rural Ethiopia. World development, 40(1), 134-145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2011.05.023
28. Griessler, E., & Littig, B. (2005). Social sustainability: a catchword between political pragmatism and social theory. International Journal for Sustainable Development, 8(1/2), 65-79. https://nbn-resolving.org/ urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-5491
29. Hatef, B., Ghafari, A., Daneshkhah, SH., & Emani, R. (2009). Providing and Distributing Drinking Water in Rural Areas Due to Earthquake and Drought Crises with the Viewpoint of Fars Province Survey. National Conference on Water Crisis Management, Islamic Azad University of Marvdasht Branch, March 2009. [In Persian] https://www.sid.ir/FileServer/SF/1591388068.pdf
30. Hoekstra, A. Y., & Wiedmann, T. O. (2014). Humanity’s unsustainable environmental footprint. Science, 344(6188), 1114-1117. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1248365
31. Horton, G., Hanna, L., & Kelly, B. (2010). Drought, drying and climate change: emerging health issues for ageing Australians in rural areas. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 29(1), 2-7. https:// doi.org/ 10.1111/ j.1741-6612.2010.00424.x
32. http://jamejamonline.ir/online/1959620869374424291
33. https://www.mehrnews.com/news/2562086/700
34. https://www.yjc.ir/fa/news/5305345/
35. Huang, J. J., Tzeng, G. H., & Liu, H. H. (2009). A revised VIKOR model for multiple criteria decision making-The perspective of regret theory. In Cutting-Edge Research Topics on Multiple Criteria Decision Making(pp. 761-768). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02298-2-112
36. Huppert, H. E., & Sparks, R. S. J. (2006). Extreme natural hazards: population growth, globalization and environmental change. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 364(1845), 1875-1888. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2006.1803.
37. Jabareen, Y. (2015). “The risk city”: Cities Countering Climate Change: Emerging Planning Theories and Practices around the World. Springer: Dordrecht, the Netherlands.
38. Jülich, S. (2011). Drought triggered temporary migration in an East Indian village. International Migration, 49, 189-199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14682435.2010.00655.x ‏
39. Katalakute, G., Wagh, V., Panaskar, D., & Mukate, S. (2016). Impact of Drought on Environmental, Agricultural and Socio-economic Status in Maharashtra State, India. Natural Resources and Conservation, 4(3), 35-41. https://doi.org/10.13189/nrc.2016.040301
40. Kim, K. H., Kabir, E., & Ara Jahan, S. (2014). A review of the consequences of global climate change on human health. Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part C, 32(3), 299-318. https://doi.org/1080/10590501.2014.941279
41. Leichenko, R., & Silva, J. A. (2014). Climate change and poverty: vulnerability, impacts, and alleviation strategies. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(4), 539-556. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.287
42. Malik, A. (2018). The main driver of social unsustainability and its remedy. International Journal of Social Economics, 45(6), 973-988. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-01-2017-0005
43. Mawle, A. (2010). Climate change, human health, and unsustainable development. Journal of public health policy, 31(2), 272-277. https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2010.12
44. Mertz, O., Halsnæs, K., Olesen, J. E., & Rasmussen, K. (2009). Adaptation to climate change in developing countries. Environmental management, 43, 743–752. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-008-9259-3.
45. Mesgaran, B., & Azadi, P. (2018). A national adaptation plan for water scarcity in Iran. working paper 6, Stanford Iran 2040 project, Stanford University. Available from: https://watercm.ir/
46. Moench, M. (2002). Water and the potential for social unsustainability: livelihoods, migration and the building of society. In Natural Resources Forum (Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 195-204). Oxford, UK and Boston, USA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1111/0165-0203.00021
47. Muyambo, F., Jordaan, A. J., & Bahta, Y. T. (2017). Assessing social vulnerability to drought in South Africa: Policy implication for drought risk reduction. Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, 9(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.4102/jamba.v9i1.326
48. O’Brien, K., Eriksen, S., Nygaard, L.P., & Schjolden, A. (2007). Why different interpretations of vulnerability matter in climate change discourses. Climate Policy 7 (1): 73–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2007.9685639
49. Petkova, E. P., Celovsky, A. S., Tsai, W. Y., & Eisenman, D. P. (2017). Mental Health Impacts of Droughts: Lessons for the US from Australia. In Climate Change Adaptation in North America(pp. 289-304). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53742-9_18
50. Reuveny, R. (2007). Climate change-induced migration and violent conflict. Political geography, 26(6), 656-673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.05.001
51. Shannon, C. E. (1948). A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal, 27(3), 379–423. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb01338.x
52. Stain, H. J., Kelly, B., Carr, V. J., Lewin, T. J., Fitzgerald, M., & Fragar, L. (2011). The psychological impact of chronic environmental adversity: Responding to prolonged drought. Social Science & Medicine, 73(11), 1593-1599. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.09.016
53. Stanke, C., Kerac, M., Prudhomme, C., Medlock, J., & Murray, V. (2013). Health effects of drought: a systematic review of the evidence. PLoS currents, 5. https:// doi.org/ 1371/ currents. dis. 7a2cee9e 980f91ad7697b570bcc4b004
54. Statistics Center of Iran, (2018). Birth certificate of the settlements of the country, in 2018. Tehran: Iran Statistics Center. Available from: https://www.amar.org.ir
55. Tiscar, P. A., Lucas-Borja, M. E., & Candel-Pérez, D. (2018). Lack of local adaptation to the establishment conditions limits assisted migration to adapt drought-prone Pinus Nigra populations to climate change. Forest Ecology and Management, 409, 719-728. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2017.12.014
56. Traore, S., & Owiyo, T. (2013). Dirty droughts causing loss and damage in Northern Burkina Faso. International Journal of Global Warming, 5(4), 498-513. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJGW.2013.057288
57. Tresman, M. (2004). Environmental Change Social Vulnerability and Conflict(Doctoral dissertation, Master‟ s Thesis, LUMES, Lund University International, Sweden).
58. UNESCO. (2015). Socio-economic consequences of desertification. United Nation, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Available from: http://www.unesco.org/mab/doc/ekocd/chapter12.html
59. Vins, H., Bell, J., Saha, S., & Hess, J. J. (2015). The mental health outcomes of drought: a systematic review and causal process diagram. International journal of environmental research and public health, 12(10), 13251-13275.‏ https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph121013251
60. Vinthagen, S. (2013). Ten theses on why we need a" Social Science Panel on Climate Change". ACME: An international e-journal for critical geographies, 12(1), 155–176.
61. Wilhite, D. A., Svoboda, M. D., & Hayes, M. J. (2007). Understanding the complex impacts of drought: A key to enhancing drought mitigation and preparedness. Water Resource Management, (21), 763–774. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-006-9076-5
62. Wilhite, D. A. (2000). Drough a global assessment. Planning for drought, Vol. I: 131-144. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/droughtfacpub
63. Wilhite, D. A., & Wood, D. (2001). Revisiting drought relief and management efforts in the West: have we learned from the past? Journal of the West, 40(3): 18-25. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/droughtfacpub/52  
64. Zahran, S., Brody, S. D., Peacock, W. G., Vedlitz, A., & Grover, H. (2008). Social vulnerability and the natural and built environment: a model of flood casualties in Texas. Disasters, 32(4), 537-560. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0361-3666.2008.01054.x