Spatial Consequences of Land Use Change in Rural Settlements (Case Study: Qarchak County, Tehran Province)

There has recently occurred a massive change of land use in rural settlements in the hinterland of cities. The expansion of urbanization has induced considerable changes in rural settlements with some physical, social, economic and environmental consequences. One of the most important consequences of land use change is the conversion of agricultural land into residential applications, which has reduced the production capacity of rural settlements. The present study was carried out in Qarchak county and 4 villages were selected as the case study. Of total population of the study area, 240 cases were selected as the sample. The research method drew on both quantitative and qualitative approaches and the data was collected using documentary and field surveys. Also, the relationship between items was evaluated using factor analysis method. According to the findings, the measurement indices of each scale used at a confidence interval of 5% had a t-value of more than 1.96, indicating a significant correlation between research items. The mean villagers' views about the effect of land use change were as follows: environmental dimension (3.61), physical dimension (3.99), social dimension (3.421) and economic dimension (58.3) all obtained at a significant level of 0.0001. The estimated t-value (246.11) was larger than the critical value of 1.96, which confirmed the relationship between test items. Therefore, it can be concluded that expanded residential use, due to population absorption and its associated social impacts such as social differences and economic consequences like increased intermediary businesses and land deals have induced environmental impacts in terms of reduced green space and agricultural lands.