Abstract for: Sustainable Development Analysis of Agriculture Using System Dynamics Approach

Sustainable Development is the management and conservation of the basic natural resources through which organizational and technological changes are lead to meet present and future needs of humans. In developing and analyzing the solutions based on sustainable development principles, we require to pursue an integrated and holistic approach. Not only system dynamics has the essential tools for systemic analysis, but also it is an appropriate approach for perceiving problems and offering solutions. The goal of this study is to present a model to analyze the dynamics in sustainable development of Iran’s farming industry. In order to achieve the mathematical equations and values of model’s variables, a simulation is carried out using the data gathered from Damavand city, Tehran, Iran. After modeling the system, Vensim simulation software has been employed, followed by identifying the leverage points of the model; then, a set of scenarios have been generated and tested through simulation.The results show that two factors are among the most important leverage points: “profit gained from agriculture” and “required water”. We could also observe that the main issue in Damavand is the lack of water for which saving policies would be a major step towards agriculture’s sustainable development in this area.