Introducing the four approaches to sustainable development and proposing a suitable scenario for the current conditions in Iran

After the Industrial Revolution, human beings, fascinated by technological achievements, became more and more exploited by natural resources. Prior to that, the rate of human exploitation was much lower than the rate of land production and absorption, so there were few environmental problems. Gradually, however, with the increasing exploitation of human beings, the conditions of nature declined, and warnings about the unsustainability of human processes led to the definition of the concept of sustainable development. Iran is also a country that is exposed to many environmental crises due to misuse of natural resources. Therefore, after introducing the four approaches of the concept of "sustainability ladder", the present article identifies the biggest and most vital environmental crises in Iran today and using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the opinions of 20 experts in the field of environment and urban development, quantifies the threat of each crisis. Finally, the threat priority of crises and the weight of each of them were obtained as follows: 1) Drought (0.425), 2) Destruction of forests, pastures and agricultural lands (0.222), 3) Air pollution (0.147), 4) Evacuation of villages (0.139) and 5) biodiversity loss (0.067). By identifying these priorities, the necessary approaches, among the four approaches, for each of the crises were proposed. To face the drought crisis, the approach of "ideal sustainable development", to face the destruction of forests, pastures and agricultural lands, the approach of "strong sustainable development", to face "air pollution" and "evacuation of villages and migration to cities", the approach of "weak sustainable de velopment" and to address biodiversity loss, either weak sustainable development or pollution control is suggested