Analysing the Effective Factors on the Unsustainability of the Rural Settlements in Zagros Mountains and Foothill (Marivan and Sarvabad counties)

Sustainability of rural areas can play an important role in the local, regional and national development. The realization of sustainable development of rural areas of the country can lead to sustainability at local, regional and national levels. Since rural settlementsaccommodate a large number of population and resources in the country, it is vital to pay attention to them in regionalplanning process in the country. For such planning processes, it is necessary to evaluate rural habitations in terms of sustainable development indices. There are signs of unsustainability in rural areas in particular in the mountainous and border areas. Demographic studies of the population in Kurdistan province indicates that rural population are leaving villages and moving to the cities.Villages of Marivan and Sarvabad counties in the western region of Kurdistan province are facing many environmental-ecological, socio-cultural, economic, institutional-political and physical- spatial problems, which resulte in the unsustainabilityof rural settlements. Comparing the current population in Marivan and Sarvabad villages with the expected population based on the natural growth in several census periods (1996, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015) indicates severe rural migration to the cities has been increased in recent years. A number of rural villages were completely deserted and many others are on the verge of depletion. In this regard, the present case study aims to investigate sustainability in the region of Zagros Mountain and foothill of Marivan and Sarvabad. The method of this study is a combination of archival and document review and survey methods. The participants of the study included 229 of Marivan and Sarvabad rural households. According to the Cochran formula, the sample size was 130 villages. Sampling, initially was used systematically and categorically until the number of samples distributed throughout the villages of the statistical community, and then, to select the samples a simple random method was used. In this study, two questionnaires have been developed, one for the authorities and one for the rural people. To assess the sustainability t test, Barometer and Radar models have been used to analyze the data. The results shows that the sustainability value in one sample t test for the authorities and for the heads of households was lower than the average number. Thus the area under study was unsustainable and the severity of unsustainability was lower in ecological, economic and social dimensions. The paper argues that the villages in the area under study are still far away from sustainable rural development There is no doubt that the role of policymakers and planners in solving the environmental, economic and physical problems and strengthening cultural and political dimensions in the regional and national level is vital. Yest if no solution is provided, insisting on keeping people in rural areas would not work and the villagers will have a logical explanation to leave their ancestral lands.