Modeling the assessment of socio-economical and environmental impacts of sand mining on local communities: A case study of Villages Tatao River Bank in North-western part of Iran

Mining has a remarkable potential for production, employment, income distribution, socio-economical development in both local and national level. Among minerals, sand is extremely valuable and also the main source for building industry all over the world. However, this mineral mainly suffers from environmental problems such as erosion, land loss, loss of biological diversity and poverty increase among people. The present article tries to study the socio-economical and environmental impacts of sand mining and work sites located on Tatao River in the North-western part of Iran. It further attempts to assess the impacts of sand mining on local communities of the river bank. The collected data were analyzed through field study in the form of a questionnaire through SPSS and LISREL for the purpose of confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis and benefit-cost analysis. The findings of the exploratory factor analysis showed that the positive impact of these work sites on the site was 65.25% while the negative impact was %34.75. The findings of confirmatory factor analysis, on the other hand, revealed the most reliable variable was related to employment and environment preservation (R=1). The findings of the cost-benefit analysis indicated that overall of the perceived benefits of the sand mining is greater than the perceived overall costs.