Evaluation of Environmental Sustainability East Azerbaijan Province

Environmental sustainability assessment is one of the most important tools in the process of sustainable development planning and therefore attention to it in policy-making and planning is inevitable. For this purpose, the present study was conducted to assess and evaluate the degree of environmental sustainability among the cities of East Azerbaijan province.

The research method is descriptive-analytical with an applied purpose. The statistical population of the study is 20 cities of East Azerbaijan provinces. In order to evaluate and rank the environmental sustainability, 13 indicators of environmental components of the cities of the province were selected from the statistical yearbook of 2012. These variables were weighed using Shannon entropy method was used.

Findings indicate differences in environmental sustainability among cities in the province. So that out of 20 cities, 4 sustainable cities (Ajabshir, Bonab, Varzeqan and Marand with scores of 0.0271, 0.1510, 0.1810 and 0.2144, respectively), 2 relatively stable cities (Bostanabad and Jolfa respectively) With a score of 0.2795 and 0.3846), 6 semi-sustainable cities (Tabriz, Maragheh, Malekan, Schister, Khodaafarin and Miyaneh with a score of 0.4755, 0.5145, 0.59393, 0.5832, 0.5933 and respectively 0.6459), 5 relatively semi-unstable cities (Charavimaq, Harris, Kalibar, Sarab and Azarshahr with scores of 0.6879, 0.7244, 0.796, 0.760 and 0.8125, respectively) and 3 cities (Osko, Ahar) And Hashtrood with a score of 0.836, 0.9001 and 0.9999, respectively) are among the deprived cities of the province in terms of environmental conditions that have less environmental sustainability.

The results of the research indicate that the cities of East Azarbaijan are in a semi-stable position in terms of environmental sustainability. In general, it can be seen that most of the cities in the process of environmental sustainability are in a semi-stable and relatively unstable state and need more priority to implement sustainable development plans.