Neda Bayat; Ali Asghar Salem
Abstract
The critical situation of water and its demand growth in Iran as well as the destruction and improper exploitation of groundwater resources with drought continuity have caused the management of water demand to become an important concern in the country's policies in all sectors, including the household ...
Read More
The critical situation of water and its demand growth in Iran as well as the destruction and improper exploitation of groundwater resources with drought continuity have caused the management of water demand to become an important concern in the country's policies in all sectors, including the household sector. Without identifying the influential factors and their importance in the pattern of household water consumption, planning and implementation of effective policies are impossible. This study identifies socio-economic factors affecting water demand and determine their degree of importance in the pattern of household water consumption. Due to the impossibility of specifying the accurate mathematical relationships between these factors and water consumption, this study used the random forest algorithm to determine the most important factors. Also, because of the differences in the lifestyle and cultures of rural and urban households, these two groups have been studied separately. Finally, according to the obtained results, 17 important factors were determined in three different levels of influence. The variables of household income, house size, and age of the household’s head were identified as the three most important quantitative variables affecting both urban and rural household consumption, respectively. Among the qualitative variables, the use of evaporative cooler was recognized as the most important effective variable. Other factors were ranked in order of effectiveness.
Mohammad Reza Pakravan-Charvadeh; Seyyed Safdar Hosseini; Saeed Nori Naeini
Abstract
Improving food security status through socio-economic determinants is always important at the household level. In this study, after assessing the food security level of households in urban and rural areas of Khuzestan province, associated factors including economic, social, and racial ...
Read More
Improving food security status through socio-economic determinants is always important at the household level. In this study, after assessing the food security level of households in urban and rural areas of Khuzestan province, associated factors including economic, social, and racial with food security were identified in 1397. To achieve the goals, 1876 and 1495 questionnaires were collected in urban and rural areas respectively. The logistic regression model was used to identify effective factors. The results showed that 63 % and 68 % of households in urban and rural areas face food insecurity respectively. Hamidiyeh county with 18 %, Omidieh 25 % , and Dezful 28 % had the least percent of food secured households in the urban areas of Khuzestan province, respectively. Also, the cities of Shadegan with 13 %, Izeh with 15 %, and Mahshahr port with 18 % had the least percent of food security households in rural areas, respectively. The results of the quantitative estimated model in the present study showed that employment of the head of the household, income, number of rooms and personal car ownership were significantly and directly associated with food security in urban and rural areas of Khuzestan province. Therefore, due to the weakness of income policies which are applying as the only ways to ameliorate food security status in Iran, paying close attention to socio-economic factors related to improving the level of household food security before any intervention is necessary.