Application of Vikor model in measuring the level of development of Iranian provinces

the beginning of the wave of using quantitative models in social sciences during the 1960s along with the development and underdevelopment issues expanded the use of these methods in determining the level of development of regions. On the other hand development and underdevelopment are among the issues that are raised among planners.in this regard the existence of regional inequalities and differences which in addition to natural economic and social characteristics affected by policies and planning has led the planning to invent techniques and methods by determining the degree of development and Ranking of regions can identify and analyze the causes of inequalities and differences in the region. Unequal development of regions is one of the issues and problems that have always occupied the minds of regional planners and implementers; Looking at the distribution of facilities and services in the regions, it is clear that these activities are not evenly distributed; Because the development of regions has been done due to the heterogeneous spatial distribution of resources as well as various social, economic and climatic factors of regions; In other words, due to the potential and actual regional facilities, the development of regions of a province or country may not be homogeneous in different sectors of industry, agriculture, services, etc., and this makes the need to study in these sectors inevitable (Nazm Fard et al., 2014, 108). Today, the study of economic and social indicators are considered essential for the development of development strategies) Yasouri,2010:60). If the level of development of regions is not measured based on economic and social indicators and these indicators are not converted into combined indicators of development, the policy-making process will be followed regardless of the effect of the said indicators and the desired result will not be achieved (Noorbakhsh,2002:930). Therefore, in order to formulate a scientific and logical basis for development policy, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the current state of regional development in terms of various economic and social indicators (Yu & etal, 2010: 1218). The ranking of regions and regions in terms of economic and social development is considered as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) that there are various methods to deal with it (Martic & etal, 2001, 343). Multi-criteria decision making is one of the most widely used decision-making methods in scientific, commercial, engineering and management affairs. These methods improve the quality of decisions and evaluations through logical clarification and efficiency of the decision-making process (Wang & etal, 2008, 45). It should be noted that the use of quantitative criteria and methods for leveling settlements in the spatial system of regions, on the one hand leads to recognizing the inequality of settlements and on the other hand is a criterion for trying to reduce and eliminate inequality between them (Taghvaei et al. 2015,156). In this research, by collecting various indicators and measures, it has been tried to study and rank the level of development in the provinces of Iran and finally to provide suggestions for achieving balanced development in the country. The research method used in this research is descriptive-analytical with an applied approach. In the field of data collection, the library method has been used. The statistical population of this research is the provinces of the country. On this basis, using the library method, the theoretical foundations related to the subject have been studied and then the Vikor model has been used to measure the ranking of the provinces of the country in terms of development indicators. Due to the importance of indicators and also the limitation of access to them, 40 variables including agricultural indicators (6 cases), industrial indicators (3 cases), educational indicators (9 cases), cultural and social indicators (6 cases) , Health and treatment indicators (8 cases), economic indicators (1 case) and infrastructure indicators (7 cases) which have been collected from the statistical yearbook of 2014, have been studied. Also, to better show the development position of Iranian provinces, based on the Qi index, all Iranian provinces were classified into three groups. At the developed level 1 province (Qom), at the developing level 19 provinces (East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Mazandaran, Isfahan, Lorestan, Ilam, Semnan, Tehran, Fars, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, South Khorasan, North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan, Kerman , Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Zanjan, Hamedan, Yazd, Kurdistan) and at the underdeveloped level, 11 provinces (West Azerbaijan, Alborz, Bushehr, Khuzestan, Qazvin, Sistan and Baluchestan, Kermanshah, Golestan, Gilan, Markazi, Hormozgan) have been identified.