Agricultural expansion and its impacts on climate change: evidence from Iran

peer reviewedExcessive concentration of greenhouse gases in atmosphere emitted from human activities has been considerably changing the world’s climate, especially in the last 50 years. Agriculture, as humans’ food production system, has undoubtedly interrelated with climate change (CC). During current decades, the impacts of CC on agriculture have been properly investigated; however, the impacts of agriculture on CC have received lower attention. This may be due to the scarcity of long-term spatiotemporal climatic and agricultural data to analyze coupling trends and interactions. Benefiting from a comprehensive database and using structural equation modeling, this study seeks to investigate the contribution of agriculture to CC in Iran for more than half a century. For this, two indicators were developed to evaluate structural characteristics of agricultural expansion (AEI) and CC at the province level. Then, the effect of AEI on CC was investigated using the structural equation modeling technique. The results showed that AEI has not had a positive contribution to raising the long-term average surface temperature. Precisely, the provinces with a higher level of surface temperature have had a lower AEI, indicating that other sectors outweigh agriculture in exacerbating long-term CC in the country. Nevertheless, Iran still needs to improve and sustain its agricultural practices and technologies. The main conclusion of this study is that if the government and policymakers aspire to manage CC, they should have a more holistic and systematic view. In other words, not only do they need to consider all drivers of CC, but they also have to pay close attention to the network of relationships among the drivers

Analyzing forest residents' perception and knowledge of forest ecosystem services to guide forest management and biodiversity conservation

peer reviewedForest ecosystem services (FES) are perceived and valued differently by different occupational groups. It is necessary to understand the various viewpoints and determinants, which have significant implications for forest management and biodiversity conservation. This suggests a need for diverse site-specific socio-cultural valuations of ecosystem services (ES) worldwide to enhance our understanding of the complexity of human-nature interactions in different social-ecological systems. In an investigation of a study area of local communities around the Hara Biosphere Reserve in the Persian Gulf, we analyze how various people and groups value FES, the determinants of various perceptions, and the implications of people's perceptions of FES for forest management and biodiversity conservation. Using the exploratory sequential mixed method, data were collected through a household questionnaire survey of 155 randomly selected people and through interviews with key informants and authorities. A decision tree was used to classify major occupational groups, and a path analysis was used to identify direct and indirect relationships among factors affecting FES perceptions. On average, the residents of the park identified 71% of the total FES that were supplied, with the cultural services as the most widely identified, followed by provisioning, supporting and regulating services. Different occupational groups perceived FES divergently. This was associated with their economic dependence on FES, age, education, proximity to the reserve, and their attendance at environmental workshops. Considering general forest management, the study provides three suggestions. Firstly, socio-cultural valuations of FES are needed to identify and compare how different occupations value ecosystems and how their services contribute to the welfare of the residents. Secondly, education initiatives should elaborate how hidden/omitted functions of the ecosystem are associated with people's well-being, thus providing them with strong motivation to support conservation programs. Thirdly, making cultural services more accessible and profitable to the public links nature conservation with social and economic well-being, and reduces overharvesting of provisioning services

Determining Key Agricultural Strategic Factors Using AHP-MICMAC

Agriculture is an irrefutable part of food policy. This paper aims to introduce an integrated method using MICMAC and AHP techniques to deal with understanding the key strategic variables of agricultural system. MICMAC was used to determine the classifications of variables and AHP was applied to weigh these classifications. MICMAC is a structural analysis tool used to structure ideas and AHP is an effective tool to deal with complex decision making and helps decision-makers making the best decision. The results show that strategic variables had different types of influence and direct, indirect, and potential dependencies did not have the same importance. AHP-MICMAC not only considers these differences, but also puts a total priority weight for each variable. These characteristics have an important role in forming strategies and scenarios for agricultural development. Therefore, the case of Iran was used to illustrate the application of MICMAC aiming to supply instructions for the development of agriculture system

Impacts of the Hara biosphere reserve on livelihood and welfare in Persian Gulf

peer reviewedDespite the importance of biosphere reserves in Iran's livelihood and welfare, the economic significance of Hara Biosphere Reserve has never been comprehensively studied. This study examines the current importance of Hara Biosphere Reserve (HBR) in local livelihood and welfare. Using a household survey, data were collected through a questionnaire, key informant interviews and direct observations. Two hundred and forty-four households were randomly selected from 10 villages through proportional sampling. Results showed that non-environmental income was the first driver of the total income, poverty alleviation and narrowing income inequality gap. Park income was the second. The results also showed that excluding park income from total income would significantly increase headcount poverty, widen the poverty gap, and raise the Gini coefficient. Wealthier households had the greatest absolute income from the environment, including forest, fishing and fodder. However, the poorest group had smallest absolute income from these sources. Thus, the study demonstrated that wealthier households are responsible for the overharvesting of environmental resources. Interestingly, the study showed that wealthier households are more dependent on profitable environmental incomes sources while the poorest are more dependent on non-profitable ones

Epidemiology of hepatitis B in pregnant Iranian women: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Perinatal transmission is one of the most common routes of hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission. This study aims to identify the epidemiological features of HBV among pregnant Iranian women. This study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Two authors independently searched several online databases without time limit until May 2017. The databases include Magiran, Iranmedex, SID, Medlib, IranDoc, Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane, Web of Science and Google Scholar. The data were analyzed based on a random-effects model using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software version 2. Thirty-seven studies were included in the meta-analysis. The prevalence of HBV among pregnant Iranian women was 1.18 (95 CI: 0.09-1.53). The prevalence of HBV among pregnant women living in urban and rural areas was 1.60 (95 CI: 0.06-4.30) and 1.70 (95 CI: 0.09-3.2), respectively. The prevalence of HBV among housewives and working pregnant women was 4.3 (95 CI: 1.4-12.5) and 1.2 (95 CI: 0.02-5.8), respectively. The risk of developing an HBV infection was significantly associated with illiteracy (p = 0.013), abortion (p = 0.001), blood transfusion (p < 0.001) and addicted spouse (p = 0.045). However, no significant relationship was observed between HBV infection and urbanization (p = 0.65), occupation (p = 0.37), history of surgery (p = 0.32) or tattooing (p = 0.69). Vaccination coverage (receiving at least a single dose) in pregnant women was 9.8 (95 CI: 5.3-17.5). The prevalence of HBV among pregnant women is lower than in the general population of Iran. HBV vaccination coverage was low among pregnant Iranian women. Therefore, health policy-makers are recommended to enforce immunization programs for HBV vaccination among high-risk pregnant women