Evaluating the Effects of Diversity of Economic Activities on Eesilience of Rural Communities to Climate Change (Study Area: Tourism Villages of Saman County)

The rise of climate changes in the last two decades in Iran reflects growing vulnerability of human settlements. Therefore, today, the intersection of climate change with rural development issues has drawn attention of academic circles to resilience approach that is more comprehensive than previous ones. Diversification of economic activities is deemed a key strategy for strengthening resilience and adaptation to climate change. In this regard, the present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of the diversity of economic activities on resilience of rural communities to climate change. In this descriptive-analytical research,  a quantitative approach has been adopted. The statistical population consists of 4519 rural households in 11 villages of Saman county, of which 354 households were selected as a sample using the Cochran formula. The findings were analyzed using structural equations (confirmatory factor analysis) method in Amos software, together with one-sample T-test and Kruskal-Wallis in SPSS software. The results reveal a very low level of diversity of economic activities in the villages of Saman region. As for the dimensions of resilience, the physical dimension has the highest and the economic, individual, social, institutional and ecological dimensions have the lowest resilience. The conclusion drawn from measuring the desirability of resilience in all dimensions suggests a significant difference between the ideal resilience and the calculated values. Also, the undesirable diversity of economic activities in the studied villages  has weakened resilience in different dimensions.