Environmental Assessment of Tourism Impacts on Sustainable Rural Development (Case Study: Rural Areas of Namin County)

The prosperity of tourism in any geographical place, along with the positive and negative economic and social consequences, has environmental effects that, if the negative effects of tourism continue, can cause irreparable damage. The present study aims to assess the environmental effects of tourism on the sustainable development of rural areas of Namin city. The research method in this study is applied in terms of purpose and based on the descriptive-analytical nature, the data of which have been collected based on field studies. The statistical population of the study consists of 11 tourist villages of Namin city with a population of 5471 people. The sample size was estimated based on Cochran's formula of 98 people, which was distributed according to the number of heads of households in each village. In order to study the environmental effects of tourism in the studied villages, 10 indicators and 33 indicators based on the studies of other researchers were used. The face validity of the questionnaire was examined by experts and its total reliability was estimated 0.88 based on Cronbach's alpha. The general results of the study showed that in terms of sustainability, the studied villages are in a moderate stability situation with 0.44 points. Also, among the studied villages, none of the villages are in a stable condition. It is relatively unstable and Khankandi village is in an unstable situation.