Surveying and ranking the deprivation in the Northern provinces of Iran

Balance regional development is one of the key subjects in spatial planning and sustainable development and emphasizes on equal life conditions, economic and social components for all people in country. Regarding to the country zoning towards national spatial planning study and to make appropriate decision in right time for equal regional development, planners at first must examine and analyze the status of different regions in terms of developmental level and deprivation. Considering the cultural and social similarities and the relatively similar climatic conditions in north provinces of the country, in this study, the provinces of Mazandaran, Gilan and Golestan have been studied. In this research, shrinkage estimation was used to refine indices, the main components analysis method was used to determine the weight of the indices and the exponential distribution function in order to combine the rankings in different categories. The geographical level in this study is rural district (Dehestan) and 21 of the most important economic and infrastructure and social services indices have been used. The deprivation rate in this study has been categorized in five categories: most deprivation, deprivation, moderate deprivation, low deprivation and marginal deprivation. In this study, 301 rural districts (Dehestan) were surveyed and the indice of each district was calculated using the multiple indices of deprivation. The results show that out of a total of 301 districts, around 120 extreme deprived and deprived district were identified, accounting for about 40% of the rural districts. About 15% had a moderate deprivation, and about 45% of rural districts were identified as low deprivation area to marginal deprivation. Based on these analyzes, most districts with very high deprivation (40%) were identified in Golestan province.