The Social Impact Assessment and Urban Development Programs(Case study: Organizing the Blocks of Martyrs in Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery)

Social, environmental, and economic assessments are three requirements necessary for attaining sustainable development; and the evaluation of the social impact has a 40-year history in the world. Since the year 1386 (2007), following the ratified bills of Islamic Council, the necessity of applying this approach to urban development projects was put on the agenda of Tehran Municipality and relatively wide measures in this regard were taken among which is the training and licensing for 500 experts to socially evaluate the development projects in Tehran. And a brief look at the matter shows a small presence or general ignorance of Iranian geography society regarding this created practical and scientific capacity. All of this is in the circumstances where the nature of urban projects has spatial dimensions, and in principle, these assessment without analysis of the space will not be very effective. Geographers (especially human geography - the major of urban planning) with understanding the analytic levels of urban problems and structural recognition of the phenomenon of city and urbanization and urban development process, can play the greatest role in this field.
The purpose of this article is providing a methodological framework of evaluating social impact as the preparatory groundwork for familiarizing the geography graduates in order to enter this arena. To achieve this goal, evaluating social impact of organizing the cemeteries in Tehran's urban area, especially the blocks of martyrs in Behesht-e Zahra, are selected, and the results can be used for other studies.