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The Lilium ledebourii Bioss is an endangered and wild species native to native to forest and moist area of Iran, having a high potential for unique beauty in Iran and world flower market.Water deficit produces a cascade of physiological responses that ends-up in decreased production and reduced crop quality. Some factors involved in plant responses to water stress. Several mechanisms that plants utilize to cope with water stress are mediated by abscisic acid. So, the aims of this study were to assess the effects of ABA in alleviating the adverse effect of polyethylene glycol- indced drought stress in lilium plants under in vitro condition. This study was carried out as factorial based on completely randomised design with 5 replications in tissue culture laboratory of Department of Horticultural Science, Faculty of Agricultural Science, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili. In vitro plantlets derived from hormone- free MS medium were cultured on MS medium containing different concentrations of PEG (0, 15, 30, 60 gr/l) and ABA (0, 1, 10, 100 µm). Vegetative traits such as bulblet number, bulblet fresh weight, plant fresh weight, root length and root number, plantlet fresh weight, leaf and scale number, and also some physiological traits in response to drought stress such as proline, chlorophyll, anthocyanins, phenols and flavonoids content were measured after 70 days from the beginning of the culture. Results showed that application of ABA and PEG into the cultural medium affected all of the studied traits, significantly (p≤0.01). Vegetative parameters of plantlets such as, root number and root length, bulblet fresh weight, bulblet number, bulblet scale, leaf number and plant fresh weight were declined by increasing the severity of drought stress. Application of lower concentrations of ABA (1 and 10 µm) enhanced plant growth rate, but a higher level (100 µm) of this plant hormone reduced growth rate under drought strss. Accumulation of phenolic compounds, anthocyanins, flavonoids and proline in tissues of plantlets subjected to severe drought stress were respectively 5.5, 4.5, 3.15 and 2.15 times more than control. While, there was a cosiderable drop in leaf chlorophyll content of stressed plantlts compared to the control. Moreover, application of ABA into cultural medium under drought stress condition, increased proline content, anthocyainins, flavonoids and phenolic compounds in the leaves. This increased concentrations of these secondary metabolytes and osmolytes might resulted in an increased plantlet growth under drought stress. Accordinig to the results it can be deduced that growth rate and bulblet formation in lilium plantlet were reduced as a result of drought stress. However, using ABA at lower concentrations in cultural medium enhanced plantlet growth rate by increasing secondary metabolites and osmolytes. While, this compound at higher concentrations showed an inhibitory effect on in vitro plantlets.

Changing in life style and consumption patterns has significant effect on environment, so that these changes increased ecological footprint (human effect on environment) and decreased ecological capacity. Along with other factors, two social factors viewed as effective factors on ecological footprint and made human and societies depart from environment sustainability, materialism and consumerism. The present study has been done with the aim of investigating the relationship among materialism, consumerism and ecological footprint. The population study is Urmia citizens and its statistic sample is 516 subjects in 15-64 ages that have been studied by use of survey method and cluster sampling. The achieved results show that variables such as materialism, consumerism and socio-economic status have had a positive and meaningful effect with less and meaningful effect of gender on rate of consumption’s ecological footprint among Urmia citizens. Also, the results of multivariable analysis showed that mentioned variables with variable of respondent’s gender generally explains 0.25 of changes of dependent variable.

Earthquake is one of the most important factors in vulnerability of rural areas in Iran, which particularly due to shallow epicenter, causes a lot of damage. In addition to the absolute and relative position of different parts of the country, rupture of spatial organization and the lack of hierarchy based on interactive relationship among settlements, are acknowledged as the most influential factors. This condition leads to disorganization of the population, activities, services and functions, and in turn, increases the vulnerability of rural settlements against natural hazards, including earthquake. In this regard, determining appropriate pattern of settlements is seen as necessary to limit the adverse effects of earthquake.
THEORETICAL FRAMWORK : Distribution of settlements, with respect to the form, can be often described as; random, regular, or clustered, but are rarely seen in real conditions. Each of these patterns provides different conditions in terms of how to deal with the critical situation, if relying on inner capacities of the settlement systems, and shows different reactions against earthquake risk.
1. Dispersed pattern: is when the population in an area is uniformly distributed. According to this pattern, any of the small settlement points are developed and the further expansion of some special points are prevented. Such condition could result in dispersion of the facilities and investments.
2. Clustered pattern: is when population was concentrated in one, two, or three points. According to this pattern, rural settlements are faced with the concentration of industrial activities, services and population in those central settlements.
3. Random pattern: is when population is distributed in small and large population centers with a given order. In this pattern, although medium and larger points were developed, however, the emphasis is on the development of small points. The characteristics of each spatial patterns of the settlement system to deal with the critical situation are as follows: In the scattered pattern, settlements have access to the minimum services and infrastructures. This pattern causes the dispersion of facilities (such as specialized therapeutic activities) and investments, which in turn, increases the vulnerability of the settlement system in critical condition, in deferent ways.
 In the clustered pattern, from economic point of view, providing public and infrastructural services is desirable, but the relationship between rural settlements due to accessibility problems, remains unresolved. To maintain the central settlement from risk and minimizing vulnerability, heavy economic investment will be required to retrofit constructions, facilities, and buildings.
 In the random pattern, the system has the benefits of both previous patterns. Accessibility was easier and service levels were increased. In this situation, investments and resources are concentrated on the midpoints. In such circumstances, by division of labor between the central and midpoints, the volume of activities and services in central locations as well as investment needed for retrofitting the central regions, were reduced. Therefore, much of the investments goes to medium points.
This study is an applied research and was performed with descriptive-analytic method. The statistical population of the study is 74 villages of Central District of Marand County, which entirely are included in the study. In this regard, Moran's I index was used to determine the distribution /concentration of spatial vulnerability of rural settlements and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to analyze the differences in distribution of villages at different levels of vulnerability in the study area. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used for data processing, analyzing, and presentation of the results.
Since the rural settlements of Central District of Marand county lie in high-risk earthquake zone, investigation of the existing spatial pattern and determining the appropriate pattern of rural settlements of the area, is necessary for reducing the destructive effects of earthquake. Therefore, in this article, beside of the determining of the settlement pattern of rural points in the region, we analyzed the vulnerability of spatial patterns of rural settlements in Central District of Marand County.
Moran's I index indicates that the spatial correlation in the target area at the 99% confidence level is positive, and spatial distribution pattern of the villages in the region is highly centralized or clustered. Consequently, investigating of the spatial pattern of villages in the study area shows that they have not been distributed uniformly and balanced. Then, using Reclassify Function in the ArcGIS 9.3 software, the geographical space of the study area is classified into three areaswith high, medium, and low vulnerability, and based on the Moran's I spatial autocorrelation, spatial analysis between the villages was performed for each area. Results show that, the villages in high vulnerability area have more tendencies for centralization and clustering. To check significant difference between two types of distributions in the villages (the observed and expected values) at different levels of vulnerability, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used. The test results showed that the statistic (value Dmax = 0.205) is larger than critical value W (1- α) at 0.95 standard confidence level. So, there are significant differences between two distributions of rural settlements in deferent levels of vulnerability with expected values. On the one hand, it is indicative of the vulnerability of the region against natural disasters, and on the other hand, clustering of villages with high vulnerability, provides an opportunity for quick and practical organization of the situation in needed times with less cost, comparing to scattered pattern.

Soil erosion in watersheds, causing problems such as the loss of agricultural land productivity and reduce soil surface layer, endangering the life of reservoirs and water utilities, loss of soil fertility, increasing flood, threatening human food security, etc. The negative effects of soil erosion, watershed management operations to improve care. According to the extent of the watershed and the lack of resources, prioritizing catchment areas due to the urgent need to implement watershed management plan is one of the solutions. Therefore, in this study the hydrological response units (HRU) were extracted in the Latyan dam basin. Hydrologic response units as a new approach can form smallest catchment study area. The need to prioritize the hydrological response of the watershed, using "Simple Additive Weighting and weighing "Analytical Network Process were performed. The results show that Most amount of erosion and Following the First Priority of Watershed's preserve is in the eastern part of the lake dam And the upstream basin with poor ranch land use, sedimentary-alluvial lithology and 26 degree of slop.

It is predicted that the water scarcity will rise in the coming years due to a population growth, increased pollution sources, climate change and occurrence of droughts can ultimately affect the amount of available water resources. A global cooperation and foresight and joint planning of water resources is necessary to resolve the water crisis. In recent years, development and designing new multidimensional and comprehensive indices seems to be the most important issue for assessment of the current condition and predicting the future trend of surface and ground water resources changes. Towards this attempt, the Water Poverty Index (WPI) is recommended as a multi-dimensional indicator to assess the availability of surface water resources. Some applications of the WPI is highlighted at different countries and also its calculation steps is demonstrated through different criteria. According to the results, the WPI is derived based on the weighted combination of five components in different studies. Main WPI components are: resources (availability, seasonal and inter-annual variability and water quality), access (accessibility of water for effective use), capacity (managing water resources based on socio-economic variables), use (level of water use by different sectors), and environment (environmental impact of water management on ecological integrity). According to multidimensional nature of Water Poverty Index along with considering all affecting factors on water scarcity and availability behind social and economic characteristics can be a useful tool in prioritizing critical areas can be considered as an effective step in optimal planning of water resources. Water Poverty Index is a combination of influencing factors on water stress and scarcity, which provide a basis to prioritize and specifying management options for different watersheds. It should be noted that determination and analysis of water scarcity in different areas is depend on the condition of water resources, data availability and the employed sub-criteria in the calculation of water poverty index.