Assessment of Developmental Levels in Ardabil Villages by Utilizing Multi-Criteria Decision Making Methods

Recognizing and surveying facilities and abilities and determining the levels of development in rural areas are the first steps in planning and developing process. To this end, this study aims to assess the levels of development in Ardabil villages by utilizing multi-criteria decision making methods. This research is based on the functional goal and descriptive analysis nature. Statistical population includes 10 villages in Ardabil. The required information includes 76 variables in 7 criteria that were taken from General Population and Housing Census and statistical yearbook 2011. Vikor’s multi-criteria decision making method, Electra and Taxonomy are used to assess the rate of development. Furthermore, we tested the assumptions by using Kendall tau rank correlation in SPSS software. The results of the decision making techniques based on average ranks revealed that villages were not in a balanced situation in terms of developmental criteria, so that out of 10 Ardabil villages 6 of them were developed, 2 of them were semi-developed and 4 of them were not developed. Also, the findings of Kendall tau test showed that there was no significant relationship between two population variables and adjacency of the villages to the county and the obtained average rank. These two components had no effect on rural development, but there was a significant relationship between the employment variable and the average rank in each village which brings the employment percentage with a positive effect on levels of development. Based on the results, some strategies are presented to make and perform the plans in order to have an integrated and balanced development in the county.