Abstract

Introduction

Rural areas in Iran face multiple structural challenges, including poverty, unemployment, migration, natural resource degradation, and spatial inequality in access to services, which have seriously threatened livelihood sustainability. The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), based on five capitals (human, social, financial, natural, and physical), provides a comprehensive framework for assessing rural well-being. However, systematic ranking of villages using these capitals has been rare. Most previous studies have relied on descriptive or one-dimensional analysis and have neglected multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) models for ranking and prioritization. The MARCOS model, as a novel MCDM method, enables accurate ranking of options by defining ideal and anti-ideal solutions. Bileh Savar County in Ardabil Province, with 13 villages having more than 500 residents, faces numerous livelihood challenges due to its border location and spatial inequalities. No comprehensive study has yet ranked livelihood sustainability in this county based on the five capitals. The innovation of this research lies in three aspects: methodological (combining SLA with MARCOS for the first time in Iran), regional (application in the border county of Bileh Savar), and policy (providing quantitative ranking for optimal resource allocation). Accordingly, this study seeks to answer three questions: (1) What is the relative weight of the five capitals and 12 livelihood indicators? (2) How are the villages ranked based on the MARCOS model? (3) Which villages are at the highest and lowest levels of livelihood sustainability?


Materials and Methods

This is an applied and descriptive-analytical study. The statistical population consisted of 13 villages with more than 500 residents in Bileh Savar County (total population 14,444; 4,225 households). A sample of 374 respondents was selected through stratified random sampling based on the Cochran formula. A researcher-made questionnaire with 36 items (five-point Likert scale) assessed 12 indicators across five capitals: human (education, skills, health), social (cooperative membership, council participation, trust), financial (savings, banking access, income diversification), natural (land area, water access, rangeland quality), and physical (road access, drinking water, housing). Content and face validity were confirmed by a panel of experts. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, with all components above 0.70. Shannon entropy was used for weighting, and the MARCOS model was used for ranking. Calculations were performed in Excel and SPSS.

Results and Discussion

The entropy weighting showed that financial capital had the highest influence (combined weight 0.538), with savings (0.236) and banking access (0.228) as the most influential indicators. Social capital (0.294), natural capital (0.133), physical capital (0.023), and human capital (0.012) ranked next. The MARCOS utility scores (Si) ranged from 0.910 (Babak) to 0.258 (Oudlu), indicating severe spatial inequality. The final utility function f(Ki) classified villages into five levels: very high sustainability (Babak, 0.87), high sustainability (Fouladlu, Gog Tappeh, Qareh Qasemlu; 0.73–0.78), moderate sustainability (Ruh Kandi, Zargar, Chaleh Kandi, Khalefeh Lu, Khan Babakandi; 0.49–0.62), low sustainability (Anjirlu, 0.34), and very low sustainability (Qiz Qaleh Si, Moradlu, Oudlu; 0.061–0.27). Oudlu, with f(Ki)=0.061, achieved only 6% of the ideal level, reflecting a near-collapse of livelihood assets. The gap between Babak and Oudlu was 14.2 times, indicating very severe spatial inequality. The analysis revealed that the main gap between the leading and critical villages is mainly due to significant differences in financial capital (0.373) and social capital (0.221), while differences in human, natural, and physical capitals are relatively smaller. The central message of this research is that the main problem of livelihood sustainability in the region is financial poverty and inequality in access to financial resources and participatory institutions, rather than weak education or skills. Financial and social capitals account for more than 80% of the total weight, while human capital is homogeneous and at a moderate level in all villages. This means that educational interventions alone cannot reduce the sustainability gap; rather, priority should be given to strengthening microfinance, banking facilities, savings, and participatory institutions in villages with very low sustainability.

Conclusions

The study confirms a profound development gap among rural settlements in Bileh Savar. Financial capital, especially savings and access to banking, is the strongest predictor of livelihood sustainability. As a policy implication, the study recommends that financial resources—microfinance, banking facilities, and savings programs—be prioritized in the four critically low villages (Oudlu, Moradlu, Qiz Qaleh Si, and Anjirlu), which exhibit the lowest financial capital weights and are on the verge of livelihood collapse. Additionally, given the 14.2-fold gap between Babak and Oudlu, balanced and sustainable development is only possible through targeted allocation of resources based on MARCOS ranking. The recommended actions include strengthening microfinance and rural credit, improving water management and rangeland rehabilitation, enhancing local participatory institutions, improving rural road quality and safe drinking water in Oudlu and Moradlu, and implementing technical-vocational training and adult literacy programs as a universal necessity for all 13 villages. The MARCOS model proved a reliable tool for sustainability ranking, and its integration with the sustainable livelihoods framework offers a practical approach for evidence-based rural planning in Iran.