فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال بیستم شماره 1 (پیاپی 77، بهار 1396)

In a rural environment, rural tourism has some consequences which bring about some direct and indirect effects on the rural societies and local inhabitants. Most consequences of the rural tourism are represented in the rural economy mainly dependent on land. Concerning the rural tourism, Razavi Khorasan province of Iran is endowed with different varieties of inhabited villages. This distinctive situation results from the environmental, economic and social-cultural factors. All these factors have caused the province to enjoy a high potentiality in the field of tourism. According to a field study, 59 villages of this kind have been recognized throughout the province. In this paper, these villages were studied with respect to their tourism attractions and also as a market to meet demands for the rural tourism; besides, the typology of the rural tourism was identified and considering the indices, its potentials in the region were verified within an MS-SWOT framework. Study results showed that the area enjoyed maximum strengths as well as maximum weaknesses, indicating a maximum-maximum status. This index represents the tourism potentials in relevance to the subject of attraction in the frame of maximum strengths and weaknesses resulted from the situation of the regional structure. Nevertheless, the external factors have not yet had enough effects on the studied area.

The purpose of this research was to study the moderating effect of marital status between Health-Promoting Lifestyle (HPL) and Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) . The statistical population of the study consisted of all rural women of Eslamabad-e Gharb county of Iran with ages from 15 to 64 (N= 13835). According to Bartlett table, a sample size of 250 was selected using multiple stage sampling technique in 2015. The standard questionnaires were used to collect data. Content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the concerned experts; also, its construct validity and composite reliability were tested by estimating the measurement model. The results showed that HPL had a positive and significant effect on HRQOL; in addition, the marital status had a moderating effect on the relationship between the two variables ; s o that the relationship was not significant for single respondents, whereas it was positive and significant for the married ones.

Assessing the development of settlements in area planning is very important. Thus, this study aimed at assessing and comparing the development levels in rural and urban settlements of Minoodasht county of Iran from the viewpoint of local residents. It was xonducted in a descriptive and analytical research method and the required data were collected through library and field studies. Using Cochran sampling formula, a sample size of 382 people was selected the county as well as its fourteen villages. In order to assess the level of development, 46 variables were extracted by using Delphi method with the participation of twelve experts. The results showed that Minoodasht settlements were better developed than its village settlements in most indices and there was a statistically significant difference between them; also, the settlements were divided into five clusters through hierarchical cluster analysis techniques.

Received: 13 February, 2016 Accepted: 5 February, 2017 In food security literature, optimal consumption pattern is defined as a diet which can secure enough amounts of energy, protein, fat, minerals and the rest of micro nutrients. In this study, using rural household's food expenditure data (Statistical Center of Iran), an attempt was made to define an optimal consumption pattern for all expenditure deciles of Iranian rural households with application of mathematical goal programming models. In order to determine optimal consumption pattern and minimal required expenditure, there were used ten groups of food items, ten nutrients and 23 constraints based on the advices of nutritional specialists. The Study results showed that with current expenditure level on food items for six food expenditure deciles, it was not possible to suggest optimal food consumption pattern, and people in these expenditure deciles could not reach to food security condition; in addition, first to fourth expenditure deciles needed to receive support from government in order to reach to food security level, while fifth and sixth deciles with minor economic efforts or optimizing their nonfood expenditure could compensate for their food expenditure.

Rural Municipalities (RMs) and studying their performance in sustainable rural development is an important topic in the field of rural management. Rural Municipality, as a participatory and democratic institution at the village, may play an important role in the process of sustainable rural development. This descriptive study aimed at investigating the factors affecting the RM performance in the villages of Isfahan county of Iran. The statistical population consisted of all the 151 RM Administers (RMAs) in the rural Isfahan. Reliability of the research items was measured by Cronbach's Alpha statistic (0.82). The results indicated the reliability of these items to measure the variables. Based on the study results, the performance of RMs in the economic, social, cultural, civil, infrastructural and environmental dimensions was at the intermediate level; in addition, the greatest attention was devoted to the social and cultural and the least to the economic and environmental activities.

In environmental studies, the main way to achieve a science-based development relying on a scientific understanding of environment is a precise attention to potentials, evaluation of the environmental potentials and finally, logical and total use of lands. In this regard, agricultural development is closely related to the environmental resources. This study aimed at assessing the environmental potentials and ecological sources of agricultural development in the catchment of Alashtar plain by using Geographical Information System (GIS). For this purpose, first, the ecological resources were identified within some informstion which were subsequently analyzed, pluralized and synthesized and finally, appropriated as information layers. Moreover, by extracting the ecological units and measuring them through the ecological criteria, the concerned potentials were estimated. Finally, the priorities with the allowed uses were determined. The study results showed that presently, 32.86 percent of the Aleshtar catchment lacked the agricultural and ranging potentials; however, 25.06 percent namely one-third of the catchment had the 'potential of two to four' for agriculture and 41.24 percent had the 'potential of one to three' for ranging. In other words, the Aleshtar catchment has an appropriate condition for ongoing activities of agriculture, dry framing, gardening and livestock.

This study descriptive and analytical study aimed at investigating the role of the credits granted by Agricultural Bank (Keshavarzi Bank of Iran) on rural development in Tehran province. It was conducted in a survey method. The statistical population consisted of farmers who had used the agricultural facilities of the bank at least one time during 2013-14. The study was mainly carried out through a questionnaire, the validity of which was obtained by using a panel of experts and masters in the rural development field. The reliability of the questionnaire was found and confirmed through a pre-test and the calculation by Cronbach Alpha. Based on the results, the agricultural credits were effective on various economic, ecological, social-cultural and structural developments with 0.77, 0.72, 0.61, and 0.58 load factors, respectively; also, the agricultural credits had no significant effect on the physical development.