Reviewing the Experiences of Rural Settlement Planning for Endangered Villages, with a look at Safi Abad Resettlement Plan in Minoodasht (North Iran)

Changing the rural spaces is undertaken the both of internal (local) forces and external factors and events such as policies and development plans in local (rural settlements transfer projects) regional and national scales. By operating the Safi Abad transfer project – a village in Minoodasht Township in north Iran- due to landslide risk، it consequences some changes in its special and formation aspects which affected seriously the socio-economic and formation system of the village. Hence، this research aimed to study these changes. The methodology used to is composed descriptive and analytical methods. The necessary data were collected by means of both library and field methods such as observation، interviews and completing questionnaires. The impacts of this resettlement plan performed in three main aspects including physical-environmental، social and economic components. The statistical population in this study consists of total 338 households that resettlement to the new site allocated for the village and among them 117 samples were selected based on Cochran Formula. The data-analysis was held with correlation analysis using the Wilcocson W-test in SPSS software. The results show that the main goal of the Safi Abad resettlement plan was the elimination of the landslide risk. After performing this، the positive consequences of the project mainly focused on formation and environmental aspects. Among them، these can be considered: the firmness of the houses; the physical and visual quality of the houses and other buildings; changes in land use towards the preparing the public services; improving the streets and pavements; reducing the environmental pollutions. But the negative consequences have appeared on economic and social aspects، among them it can be considered as: indisposing the structure of the employment specially reducing the livestock activities; increasing the unemployment; changing the traditional society and increasing the insecurity scene.