Measurement of Environmental Sustainability in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Saravan Sub-district, Rasht County of Iran

This study aimed at measuring the indicators of environmental sustainability in sub-district of Saravan of Rasht county of Iran. It was conducted in a survey method through a structural equation modeling, by using Lisrel software to provide a model of poverty. Some 351 households living in the studied rural areas were determined by using Morgan table, which was increased to 370 to get more accurate results. The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that the five factors including implementation of environmental projects in the village, participation and cooperation of all residents of the village as well as the environment-support local institutions and governmental organizations, the environmental beliefs, the necessary training on the consequences of destructive acts against the environment, and previous experience and knowledge of local environment in the village were effective in measuring environmental sustainability. In fact, the designed models for measuring environmental sustainability were confirmed according to the achieved data in this study.