The Analysis and Prioritization of Social Sustainability of Rural Environments (Case Study: Ghal eh Biaban District Darab Sub-Province)

Rural sustainable development has different dimensions in which the dimension of social sustainability is of great importance. This dimension follows not only determining the minimum social requirements for long-term development but also recognizing the challenges ahead of the society performance for a long time. As a matter of fact, accessing social sustainability in rural areas requires the recognition and analysis of social sustainability of the villages. Therefore, regarding social sustainability, the present study aims at evaluating, analyzing and prioritizing rural area of Ghal’eh Biaban District (Darab City). The data are gathered through library method, (including books, articles, and statistics) and field method (the questionnaire in the frame of Likert range to evaluate and analyze social sustainability indices). The samples include the families of 7 villages with the population more than 20 families in which 10% of the population was chosen (185 people) as the sample families. Analysis of data was done using RALSPI model and statistical descriptive and inferential methods. Variance analysis was applied for explaining difference among villages in respect of social sustainability, and ranking cases was done through RALSPI method because of reducing substitution possibilities between indicators. This method requires weighting indicators, so the weight vector was calculated using entropy method whose results assumed as input of RALSPI method. The findings reveal that rural areas have higher than average social sustainability, although there are significant differences among the villages. Moreover, based on RALSPI method, it turns out that Fath Abad village has the highest rank of social sustainability while Bikh & Bongol the lowest rank of social sustainability.