Assessing the Performance of Farmers in Environmental Sustainability of Villages Case Study: (Central Part of Nimroz Township)

In recent years, the reduction or stopping of water flow from the Hirmand River to Sistan, the occurrence of successive droughts, the drying of the Hamoon wetland, the reduction of vegetation of the land associated with the villages, the presence of 120 days of winds, the intensification of soil erosion and the occurrence of storms Sand and sand flooding into rural settlements have greatly adverse environmental conditions on the villages of this region. On the other hand, according to Article 10 of the Articles of Association of Organizations, dated 2/27/2002, the Cabinet of Ministers, the main tasks of the dwellers for sustainable development of the village are improvement of the environment (Paragraph 1 and 7 of the Statute), rural health (Fourteenth, twentieth and forty-four) and conservation of water resources (paragraphs twenty-third and fourth). Therefore, this research intends to examine the performance of rural dwellers in the environmental sustainability of villages in the central part of Nimroz. The statistical population of the study includes all villages with a total of 32 villages and sample villages including villages that have been in existence for at least 5 years. Accordingly, 18 villages have been surveyed. According to the number of households in them, using the Cochran formula, 271 households were questioned. Fuzzy hierarchy analysis model, weight composition technique in the software environment G.I.S. and one-way analysis of variance and Kendall's correlation test in Software SPSS are used to analyze the data. According to the findings, in 22% of the studied villages, the performance of the rural dwellers in environmental sustainability was average while weak or very weak in other villages. On the other hand, the results of statistical analysis show that the performance of rural dwellers in the rural health environment alone (with an average of 2.77) is almost average and in other components is lower than expected.
Extended Abstract
1- The annual reports of the World Watch Institute on the status of environmental resources reflect the unfavorable status of many indicators related to these resources around the world. Unfortunately, Iran has consistently ranked below the global tables in respect of environmental sustainability and sustainable development indicators; So that Iran's status in environmental performance indicators, which examined 22 environmental factors from Yale and Columbia University, 83 out of 178 countries surveyed in 2014 while it has fallen to 105 in 2016, in terms of environmental performance. On the other hand, according to paragraph 10 of the statute of the structure and organizations, approved by the government on 2/27/2002, the main responsibilities of the rural municipality council for the sustainable development of the village are improving the environmental status of the villages. Therefore, the present study aims to evaluate the performance of rural municipality council as local managers in the control, management and environmental sustainability of villages.
2- This research has been done by descriptive-analytical method. The statistical population of the study is 32 villages with a rural municipality council located in the central part of Nimroz County until 2017, of which 18 villages with a history of over 5 years of establishment as a statistical sample were determined. Based on the number of households in sample villages and using the Cochran formula, 271 households were calculated as the sample size of the household. Besides, in accordance with the geographical range and the conditions governing the villages of this County, a set of components and indices have been determined to evaluate the performance of the rural municipality council in the environmental sustainability of the village. Data analysis was done by using the fuzzy hierarchical analysis model and statistical and spatial analyzes using SPSS and GIS software. One-way analysis of variance analysis and Kendall's correlation test were used in statistical analyzes.
3- The results of the research indicate that the rural dwellers do not have any good or excellent performance in the environmental sustainability of the villages, and in only 4 villages out of the 18 studied villages, rural residents have an average level of environmental performance in rural areas. The study of the distribution of the studied villages in terms of the performance of rural dwellers in rural environmental sustainability shows that villages with a meddle level are mainly studied in northern and southern regions, and villages with poor or very poor performance are scattered throughout the studied area. Moreover, Kendal’s correlation test was used to survey the level of educators and environmental sustainability of the villages. According to the correlation coefficient of 0.679 and error level of less than 5%, a significant correlation with 95% confidence level is established between these two variables. On the other hand, one-way analysis of variance analysis has been used to investigate the impact of rural dwellers on environmental sustainability in villages. The results of one-way ANOVA showed that the mean of variance among the groups is more than the average of the groups, and since the level of significance is less than 0.001, with a confidence level of 99%, there is a significant difference between the intensity of the activity of the attendants on various components of environmental sustainability in the studied villages. In this regard, the results of this test confirm that, the most influential actors in the environmental and wildlife health components, out of the 6 studied components, have an average of 2.75 and 2.5 in environmental sustainability respectively. Based on one-way ANOVA and respondents' views, the performance of the farmers in these components (soil, air and vegetation) was expressed at a weak level with mean values of 77.1, 88.1 and 17.2, respectively.
4- The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of rural dwellers in the environmental sustainability of villages in the central part of Nimroz Township. The results of the study showed that the performance of the farmers in environmental sustainability was poor or very poor in 78% of the studied villages and 22% in the middle level. The effect of rural dwellers' performance on the environmental sustainability of rural areas is limited to the rural health components and will be weak in other components that play a more important role in environmental sustainability, it is mainly the level of educators, the lack of awareness and lack of adequate training for environmentalists to deal with environmental instability, as well as the lack of funding for decentralization to reduce environmental instability