The impacts of Zarivar wetland on the livelihood assets of rural households

The wetlands are valuable ecosystms that among diffenet kinds of natural ecosystems have diverse functions in human life. In addition to the conservation of biodiversity, this phenomenon have a lot of natural, economic, social and many other values that can affect the assets of local people and their livelihoods and ultimately living standards. Thefore, the present study aiming to evaluate the effects of Zarivar wetland in Marivan County on housholds’livelihood assets living in villages around the wetland. As a descriptive-analytical research using both documentary and survey methods, necessary data and information were gathered form the field by a structured questionnire based on (DFID) sustainable livelihood framework. The study area was Marivan County and studied population consisted of 1539 head housholdsin 7 villages that living around the wetland and using Cochran’s sample size formula 230 persons were selected as the sample group of the study. The collected data were analyzed by applying both SPSS and LISREL softwares. Based on the findings the wetland have affected all five dimensions of livelihood assets ( natural, human, physical, social and financial) in studied housholds as they stated that the level of assets components have imporove considerably. In this regard, natural capital/asset was specified as the most affected one in people’s livelihood by the respondents. Also the results of theLISREL model indicate significant measure sustainable livelihoods of all indicators and dimensions of its evaluation in which it can be concluded that the Zarivar wetland with dimensions and parameters have been considered, have improved local residents’livelihood