Measuring the Relationship between Economic Diversitywith the Change of Resiliencylevel of Boundary Rural Areas (Case Study: Marivan and Sarvabad cities in Kurdistan Province)

Nowadays in the area of rural planning, instead focusing on rural vulnerability rather than emphasizing on their resiliency as a preventive and confrontational approach to crises. In this regard, one of the effective measures in view of the economic weaknesses and its role in the vulnerability of rural areas is the diversification of the rural economy, in order to eliminate the factors and areas of harm. To this end, in the current applied research, the role of diversification into economic areas of rural areas of Sarvabad and Marivan in Kurdistan province has been studied on improving their resiliency level. Collection of information in theoretical part is documentary and in the field surveying part is based on the distribution of questionnaires and interviews with local people. The statistical population of this study is villages of Khavemirabad and Zaryvar villages in Marivan city and Oraman and Dazli districts in the city of Sarvabad, which have diverse economic activities in the villages. The number of households’ heads in the sample villages, which determined by lottery method, was 3358. By using the Cochran formula, 260 heads of households were selected as sample size and the questionnaires were distributed randomly among them. Data analysis by using inferential statistics (Chi-square, single-sample t-test, Wilcoxon and path analysis) showed that in sum, the economic variation in the region has been able to improve, at the significant level of 0.001 and by average of 3.45, the resiliency level of the studied villages in the economic resilience with an average of 3.44, social dimension with an average of 3.45, and then environmental resiliency at an average of 3.42. Meanwhile, economic resiliency with amount of 442 has had the greatest impact on improving the resiliency level of the studied villages. Also, the average local population's vulnerability to natural and human-made crises on their livelihoods has fallen from an average 2.74, in the post-economic period, to the satisfactory average of 3.58 in the region.