ارزیابی اثرگذاری عوامل اقتصادی، اجتماعی، جمعیت‏‌شناختی و اقلیمی بر ظرفیت زیستی در ایران

Introduction: The capacity of natural resources and ecosystems of the planet to support human life is limited, because most of the natural resources of the planet are resources with limited renewable characteristics (such as fresh water resources, fertile agricultural soil, forests, deserts, pastures, mountains, seas, etc.). The permitted use of these resources is maximum up to their renewability. Therefore, maintaining and properly managing these resources is very important to maintain biological capacity. Nevertheless, the growth of the world population and the rapid growth of economic activities have caused environmental pressure on all socio-economic systems. In this regard, the review of available information sources shows that from the beginning of human civilization to the middle of the 20^th century, environmental resources have always been sufficient for human activities. At the same time, since the middle of the 20^th century, these activities have exceeded the capacity of the environment and caused environmental degradation and ecological instability. There have always been various environmental challenges in Iran over time, especially over recent years, which reduction of water resources, soil erosion, air pollution and energy shortage crisis are among the most important ones. Based on this, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) of 2022 shows that Iran was ranked 133^rd among the 180 countries studied. Therefore, in this research, using regression methods and representative indicators of the economic, social, demographic and climatic conditions, the factors affecting the biological capacity in Iran were analyzed and evaluated.
Materials and Methods: In this research, Iran's per capita bio-capacity index was a function of various economic, social, demographic and climatic factors, including GDP, human development index, population density and de-Martone index. For this purpose, the annual time series statistics of 1990-2020 and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach were used. Then, the desired analyses were performed for short-run and long-run time periods and the results were compared.
Results and Discussion: The results showed that in the short-run, with the increase of GDP per capita, the amount of biological capacity per capita would increase in Iran; however, in the long-run, the increase in GDP would not have a significant effect on bio-capacity. Also, with the increase in population density, the amount of bio-capacity per capita in the country would increase in the short-run and decrease in the long-run. Despite this, based on the obtained results, it was found that unlike the short-run periods, in the long-run, the amount of bio-capacity in Iran would increase with the increase of the human development index; in addition, reduced degree of the air dryness and improved the climatic conditions in the short and long run would lead to the improvement of the biological capacity in the country. Therefore, it can be concluded that the positive effects of economic growth on biological capacity in Iran are only limited to short-run periods. In addition, it is inferred that many of the measures taken to improve bio-capacity in Iran, which moderate the negative effects of population density and economic growth, are effective mainly in the short-run. Also, it is inferred that focusing on the components of human development, especially the educational aspects, in the long-run leads to the improvement of the biological capacity in the country. Therefore, it can be admitted that investing in education in the long-run will lead to biological sustainability in the country.
Conclusions: The analysis of the study results showed that the actions taken regarding the promotion of biological capacity in the short-run had controlled and prevented the harmful biological effects of economic growth and population increase. Therefore, it seems that the continuation and sequence of these actions in the long-run can also help in improving the biological conditions in the country in addition, maintaining and promoting effective measures to improve biological capacity in Iran is the first suggestion emphasized in this study. Based on the study results, it was also found that increasing the human development index in the short-run would reduce the amount of bio-capacity per capita in Iran. Nevertheless, in the long-term, the biological capacity in the country would increase with the increase in human development index. Therefore, it seems that focusing on the quantitative dimensions of health and education in the short-run has led to the reduction of biological capacity in Iran. At the same time, despite the adverse effect of the growth of national income in the long-run, the quantitative and qualitative development of health and educational capacities in the long-run and the increase of life expectancy and enhanced public knowledge in the field of environment have finally led to biological development in the country. Therefore, making more use of the educational capacities in the country in order to manage the biological conditions as optimally as possible is another emphasized suggestion in this study. Also, it seems that by increasing life expectancy in the country, it is possible to act more effectively in the field of managing biological challenges.