Effect of drought on water quality and agricultural land value

In addition to yield, drought also affects water quality. Therefore, for long-term agricultural planning, the climatic situation of the regions must be determined. Therefore, in the present study, while evaluating the effects of drought on the quality of surface water salinity, the effects of drought and water salinity on the rent of agricultural lands were examined. For this purpose, by using SPI index, drought classes in the region were determined and by using QUAL2K model, water salinity was simulated in Taleghan river. Then, using Ricardian's approach, the effect of climatic, salinity and economic variables and their interactions on agricultural land rent were evaluated. The results of the QUAL2K model show that the drought has a direct and non-linear relationship with surface water quality, so that with decreasing river flow during moderate, severe and very severe drought classes, salinity decreases by 20.5, 41.3 and 57.8%, respectively. Based on the results of the Ricardin model, agricultural land rent is inversely related to water salinity and temperature, and is directly related to rainfall. The results of changes in the rent of agricultural land also showed that during the middle, severe and very severe drought classes, land rent decreased by 17.7, 32 and 42.4 percent, respectively. Therefore, it is suggested that farmers' compensation be determined on the basis of the amount of "lost rent", as it provides an accurate estimate of the actual amount of drought damage

The Effects of Spatial and Temporal Decisions on Orange Marketing in Babol County

Introduction: Due to the fact that farmers are in the surrounding factors such as cultural, social and economic environment, these factors can influence the attitudes and decisions to accept or reject the innovation. Farmer`s opinion over time, also, have a significant role in making new decisions. Therefore, absent a model which would assess the temporal and spatial factors in the decision - making process by growing citrus is strongly needed. This study aims to identify and measure the factors affecting the sales channel chosen by farmers and considers the impact of neighboring on farmers’ decisions using the spatial probit model and finally provides some strategies to improve and increase the efficiency of distribution channels in the product market. One of the aims of this research is to assess the effects of accumulated decisions in the minds of farmers on the choosing of marketing channel. Another innovation of this study is evaluating the spatial factors on orange marketing which examines the effects of diffusive decisions in adjacent villages. Materials and Methods: The data used in this study were collected by questionnaire form 99 gardeners in 9 villages in Babol in 1391-92. In this paper, three distribution channels including retail, sales to middle man and sales to whole sale are evaluated at Babol County. For testing these three channels, probit panel data and spatial approach were used. Therefore, in this model the effects of age, experience, education, amount of sales, price, spatial and temporal effects variables have been modeled. To get the spatial effects, the weighted contiguity matrix was used. Results and Discussion: Age has a positive effect on wholesale approach. In sales to middleman approach, age has also positive effect, but its effect is more than wholesale and retail, because as the age increased, risk acceptance decreased. In retail, this variable (age) has a negative effect. In this way, due to higher marketing costs, the more sales time and the higher risks, with increasing of age, the less the tendency of farmers to sell to retail. With higher education, the probability of broker method increased, however, the wholesale and retail approaches will decrease. As the variable increases, the probability of choosing a wholesale than retail method increased as well. Orchardist age increases the probability of deselect a wholesale and not retail method. If the orchards have more citrus to sell, the change of choosing wholesale and retail methods will reduce. With increasing of the power market, choosing the path of the broker will be increased too. Price is one of the most important parameters that affect farmer`s decisions. Increasing in price reduces the power of brokers in imposing their views, therefore, the probability of choosing other paths increased. One of the important factors that have played a significant role in farmers' decisions is the kind of decisions in his mind. In wholesale path, the farmers were most affected by last year decisions. On this path which is an optimization approach in sales, the grower seems to be more satisfied with his previous decision. However, in retail approach, the value of this coefficient is lower. This variable has a negative coefficient in the broker approach. In fact, as far as possible, the grower does not desire to repeat last year's decision to sell his product to the middleman and prefers to sell it with another method. Spatial lag variable in the model is the one that represents the influence of the farmers on each village from the farmer`s decisions in adjacent villages. The amount of this variable in retail sales was higher than other methods. Hence, neighbors’ decision, has been the biggest influence on the choice of this path. Proximity also exists in wholesale method. So in this case, the choice of marketing channel was affected by the choice of others. The broker method has the lowest interaction of farmers from decisions in adjacent villages, since it has the lowest income for farmers per unit of sales. Conclusion: In wholesale, decision of the previous year is more effective than the spatial lag. Hence, in this type of selling, past tendencies which have been accumulated in the grower`s mind, are more important than others’ decisions to sell their product. Therefore, changing this type of marketing is more difficult than the two other methods. In broker methods, gardener always disobeys his last year decisions and tries to sell his product in a different way. In this method, he is also affected by decisions made by others. In general, this method is less desirable for orchardist and usually will be selected as the last option. In retail method, neighbors’ decisions have had more impact on the choice of marketing system rather than the farmers’ past decisions. In the retail channel, the neighbors’ decisions have the most influence on the gardeners’ decisions. According to the highest orchardist configuration has occurred in retail marketing, creating a successful marketing model based on this method can effectively contribute to the changing in the marketing of this product and can lead to reduce the marketing margin

Analysis of the effects of drought risk management using water productivity indicators

In recent years, with droughts and declining irrigation water, efficient use of water and water management has become inevitable. For this purpose, in this study, the risk effects of irrigation strategy in Qazvin plain in the 2015-2016 were analyzed. Initially, the percentage change in water quantity was calculated during the drought period. Then, using water-yield functions, deficit irrigation was applied to plants in four scenarios of 19, 32, 44 and 51% corresponding to the periods of weak, medium, severe and very severe droughts. Then, using the TM-PMP model, the risk effects of drought were investigated on the cropping pattern and water consumption productivity. The results showed that deficit irrigation increased the area under crops of wheat, barley and beans. This management strategy drastically reduces gross income by 24 percent in very severe drought conditions. Income risk is reduced by applying a deficit irrigation scenario during drought periods. Gross margin also decreases non-linearly as income risk. Water use efficiency decreased for wheat, barley, corn, tomato, maize and bean crops, and increased for beet and alfalfa crops. Therefore, if the irrigation strategy is implemented, the rate of income reduction in drought conditions will be 24%, but otherwise the income reduction will reach 58 percentages

Investigating the Effect of Macroeconomic Variables on Business Cycles in Iran, Markov-Switching Model Approach

One of the key issues that economists face when analyzing the evolution of economic activity is the attempt to explain business cycles. The behavior of macro variables during the business cycles and the effect of monetary and fiscal policy on their dynamics is a key stage in understanding the role of financial markets in the real economy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify business cycles by using the Markov Switching model and to examine monetary and fiscal policies that affect it. To this target, using seasonal data during the period of 1996-2016, it was found that GDP growth has three regimes with average of negative, mildly positive and high positive growth. The results of the research indicate that monetary policy and exchange rate uncertainty have a significant negative impact on economic growth in business cycles of mildly boom and depression. However, oil revenues in all three business cycle regimes have a positive and significant effect on economic growth. Also, fiscal policy (tax) as an auto stabilizer has a very small contribution to the adjustment of business cycles during the recession and economic prosperity of Iran. In general, the impact of significant variables has led to a shortening of the recession and boom in economic growth

A survey in the attitudes of parents and teachers about educational placement of gifted students

Objective:The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes of parents and teachers about educational placement of gifted students.Method: The present study is an applied research and is undertaken by survey method. The statistical population of this research includes the total number of parents and teachers of gifted students studying in Rasht city in 2010-2011 and the sample size was the same as the population (64 teachers and 96 parents) .The Attitudes Assessment of Parents and Teachers of gifted student's inventory was used for collecting the data.Frequency and percentage was used for the descriptive data and analysis of data was accomplished by utilizing kallmogrof-smirenof and independent T test.Results: The results indicated that both parents and teachers have negative attitudes about integration and positive attitudes towards segregation of gifted students. Actually both parents and teachers prefer the segregation placement for gifted students. Conclusion and Recommendations: The suggestion is that the ministry of education should collaborate with academic experts to design and implement workshops about integrated education for parents and teachers of all types of students, such as gifted students, and also students with intellectual disabilities to increase their knowledge about integrated education and the benefits of this system. In order to change the negative attitudes of parents and teachers about integrated education. Upon these attitude changes their support can be gained for promoting this educational system

Synthesis of Graphene Oxide Functionalized with Amio Methyl Phosphonic Acid (AMPA) and its Structural Characterization

In this paper, graphene oxide (GO) and its functionalization with “Amio Methyl Phosphonic Acid” (AMPA) are synthesized using modified Hummers method. Crystal structure of the compounds is investigated by X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) clearly shows that the AMPA agent does really enter into the GO. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) images of the compounds reveal that they are in the form of nano-sheets. High resolution TEM (HRTEM) microscope is also used to observe and study the nanoscopic morphology of the structures. In addition, the samples are element-analyzed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscope (EDS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to get more information. Finally, the functionalization mechanism of GO with AMPA is studied and the mechanisms of “nucleophilic displacement” as well as “condensation reaction” are suggested andare experimentally confirmed. Due to the favorable properties of the synthesized material AMPA-GO, its use was suggested for water treatment and removal of heavy metals such as lead and strontium