Journal of Natural Environment

Determination of the most effective indicators of environmental sustainability in Tehran and Alborz provinces

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Economics, Agricultural Planning, Economic and Rural Development Research Institute (APERDRI), Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Tehran University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jne.2024.370468.2634

Abstract

Since any activity to improve the quality of human life is done in the environment, the state of the environment and its resources will affect the development process in terms of sustainability or unsustainability. Environmental indicators as the first evaluators of pressure on the environment, determining the state of the environment and evaluating the considered approaches, play an important role in the environmental sustainability report. Tehran and Alborz provinces are facing limited resources, increasing population growth and changing material and energy consumption patterns due to overloading of population and activity; which has caused the pressure on the environment and natural resources in these provinces to increase everyday. Therefore, in this study, the environmental sustainability of Tehran and Alborz provinces was determined with the approach of indices and Shannon entropy method. For this purpose, 13 indicators were selected for Tehran and Alborz provinces in the period of 2004-2020, which factors such as measurability and scientific suitability played an important role in collecting information. The weighting of indicators using the Shannon entropy method showed the highest relative weight with the amount of 0.392 (that is, more than a third of the total weights obtained) belongs to the fires in forests and pastures. The watershed management programs with a weight of 0.292 have been assigned the second importance. The calculation of the composite sustainability index also indicates that Tehran and Alborz provinces have seen a decline in environmental sustainability during 2004-2020. The activities carried out in the field of desertification, sewer network, and distributing chemical fertilizers have also been other effective factors to a lesser extent in the composite index in these years, which in total accounted for 16.9% of the weight of the indicators. Sustainable and community-oriented management of natural resources; Resolving legal deficiencies; completeness of detailed and operational studies of the remaining watershed management activities; and encouraging and persuading the use of organic fertilizers are recommendations of present study.

Keywords

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Journal of Natural Environment
Volume 77, Issue 1
May 2024
Pages 1-13