Evaluation and prioritize of rural sustainable livelihoods indicators and criteria in iran by the Delphi method

In achieving sustainable livelihoods in rural areas, the need for accurate and complete identification of factors affecting the process of formation and development of rural areas is necessary. In this regard, identification and evaluation of criteria and indicators of sustainable rural livelihoods can be promising. In this study, it has been tried to identify and evaluate the criteria and indicators of rural sustainable livelihood in the country through a comprehensive review of the library resources and existing records. For this purpose, factors influencing rural sustainable livelihood were formulated in the form of a group of criteria, and indicators for each criterion. In the next step by using the Delphi method and using normalized importance coefficient, the indices were screened. Based on the results, the economic criterion group with the highest Normalized Importance coefficient (0.338) was identified as the most important criterion group. Two income and cost and water resources criteria with normalized importance coefficient 0.720 and 0.070 are more important than the other criteria, and then the employment and health of the society criteria are at the next levels. Among the indicators of sustainable livelihoods, household income index is ranked first with the normalized importance coefficient 0.0084. And two indicators of assets and household expenses are ranked second with the same importance coefficient (0.0081).