The formulation of Ecologically Sustainable Development Scenarios of Mashhad Metropolitan region using regional foresight approach

The increase in changes and rapid global reformations have boosted uncertainty toward the future and thus complexity of problems and difficulty in decision-making and planning in the fields of environment preservation and ecology sustainability. Regional foresight, as a brand new approach, plays an important role in ecological issues which can provide a sound understanding of what might happen in the future based on various human and technology measures. Based on these facts, the present study aims at the formulation of spatial scenarios based on ecologic sustainability in Mashhad metropolitan region through the regional foresight approach. This research is an applied one and it is descriptive-analytic in nature and method. The data and information required for the research are a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collected through documentary and survey studies (interviewing experts). Fuzzy Linguistic Mic Mac by FL MicMac software was used to analyze data and identifying key factors and Morphological analysis and Morphol software were used to analyze and formulate the scenarios. The results of the study indicate the impact of 11 key factors: "academic defects in the long-term planning of the region", "legal drawbacks, inattention to regulation and law enforcement by the relevant authorities", lack of policy integration in planning”, "Over-Establishment of Industries in the Mashhad Plain (Axar-Quchan-Mashhad)", "Migration", "Expansion of Transport Lines (Roads and Transportation)", "Unstable income of regional municipalities", "Irregular cultivation and irrigation of agricultural products", "Unauthorized exploitation of mines", "Technology" and "Insufficient trust in public participation and ignoring the role of NGOs" on ecological development of Mashhad metropolitan region. Also, according to the research findings, Mashhad metropolitan region will be faced with five possible scenarios with a significant probability of 4.1 in spatial development. Each of these scenarios is compared using components such as "probability percentage", "inertia value" and "degree of utility of each scenario", and finally the third scenario (Ecotopia) is selected as the optimal scenario of the region. This scenario was growing and more favourable than other scenarios, and its assumptions indicate the gradual movement of key factors of spatial development in the region based on ecological principles.