Application of social lifecycle approach in assessing social sustainability (Case Study:Menarid Project)

Introduction:

 the necessity of paying attention to social and understandable aspects of social sustainability during the evaluation of development projects is one of the most important and key tools in planning and policies for growth and development by governments.

The overall paradigm of this mixed research is sequential-exploratory (qualitative-quantitative). In terms of controlling variables, it is non-experimental and in terms of purpose, it is an applied-developmental research. In the sequential-exploratory project, first the process of collecting and analyzing qualitative data is done and then these results are used for quantitative (questionnaire) section. Finally, both quantitative and qualitative analyses are interpreted and analyzed in one place.

The findings indicated the fact that social sustainability was maximum in the time constraints of the project implementation and among the components of social sustainability, the component of social participation was identified as important points and high effects on social sustainability.

The results of social sustainability assessment based on the social lifecycle approach can promote things such as creating a common view on comprehensive management of natural resources, sharing past information, advanced and planned development activities, better coordination of measures with existing investment, improving the design and regulation of future projects and plans, and identifying and addressing the main obstacles and bottlenecks for the development of successful approaches.