Suchergebnisse

This study aimed to analyze the causes and consequences of agricultural water conflicts among agricultural water beneficiaries in the irrigation network of Doroodzan dam, Iran. This research applied mixed-method and descriptive analysis, which was done in two qualitative and quantitative phases. The results showed that the causes of water conflicts can be divided into two groups of controllable and uncontrollable factors. The findings revealed that the main causes of agricultural water conflict in the studied area were &lsquo ; water scarcity&rsquo ; &lsquo ; drought&rsquo ; &lsquo ; physical structure of the Doroodzan dam irrigation network&rsquo ; and &lsquo ; mismatched size of the irrigation network with Doroodzan dam&rsquo ; s water capacity&rsquo ; as uncontrollable factors. Furthermore, &lsquo ; weakness of governmental water management&rsquo ; &lsquo ; lake for local management of water resources by farmers&rsquo ; &lsquo ; government&rsquo ; s reluctance about farmers&rsquo ; participation&rsquo ; and &lsquo ; farmers&rsquo ; reluctance to participate in water management&rsquo ; were identified as controllable factors. In this study, most of the conditions identified as consequences of water conflicts had &lsquo ; socio-economic&rsquo ; and &lsquo ; agro-environmental&rsquo ; aspects. Finally, based on the findings, a model was designed to determine the causes and consequences of agricultural water conflict. To break the causes and consequences cycle of water conflicts in Iran&rsquo ; s agriculture, the most important solution is shifting from governmentality to governance in water resources management.

In developing countries, agricultural development is still a fundamental means of poverty alleviation, economic development and, in general, sustainable development. Despite the great emphasis on sustainable agricultural development, it seems that there are many practical difficulties towards empirical assessment of agricultural sustainability. In this regard, the present study aims to propose a comprehensive framework for the assessment of agricultural sustainability and present an empirical application of the proposed framework in south-east Iran (Kerman province). The framework is based on a stepwise procedure, involving: (1) The calculation of economic, social, environmental, political, institutional and demographic indicators, covering the actual and potential aspects of unsustainability ; (2) the application of Fuzzy Pairwise Comparisons and Analytic Hierarchy Process to construct composite indicators, with the purpose of incorporating the concept of social construct into the assessment process ; and (3) the application of Sustainability Maps, diagrams and Barometer of Sustainability for presenting and analyzing the results. The output of the framework is a comprehensive and yet easy-to-understand picture of agricultural sustainability numerically and visually for the selected counties of the province in 2003 and 2015&mdash ; via the variety of comparisons and rankings&mdash ; which allows us to identify the weaknesses and strengths of agriculture in each county in various sustainability levels (comprehensive, overall actual and overall potential, dimensional, and base indicators). It also enables us to monitor and analyze the trends in sustainability changes over the years. By providing such information, this framework can be a useful tool to support agricultural sector decisions that would help planners and policymakers find the right path and move toward sustainability, or modify policies to stay in the right direction over time. Overall, the results suggest that the proposed framework can be an effective tool for the assessment of agricultural sustainability. Of course, it is necessary to examine and validate its capabilities through practical applications in different agricultural areas and systems.

Iran faces a water crisis so severe that much of its land has ceased to be productive. Since Iran has coped with water shortages for thousands of years, it would seem that something has been lost in the abandonment, over the past half-century or so, of traditional practices in favour of modern ones. A comparison of the socio-technical systems inherent in the traditional practices with those that accompany the modern ones reveals a striking loss of institutional plurality. It also suggests the remedy: a switch away from 'government' (in which state actors prescribe and firms, farms and households comply) to 'governance' (in which state actors are in two-way and constructive engagement with actors from both the market and civil society).

AbstractThis study has been done with the aim of developing and validating a perceptual scale for small‐scale farmers in arid regions and also redirecting interventions towards sustainability; it was conducted in the two qualitative and quantitative phases. In the scale validation process, principal component analysis was employed to identify the latent dimensions of farmers' perceptions of climate change. The results showed that the scale of farmers' perceptions of climate change has five latent dimensions including "awareness and knowledge," "ascription of responsibility," "forgetfulness and optimism about the future," "perceived risk," and "human agency." The results of model validation revealed that all fitness indices are at a suitable level, and this scale might be used by climate change social interventions for sustaining agricultural activities, in water‐scarce areas. Given that forgetfulness and optimism are due to the weakness of farmers' episodic memory, it was recommended that climate change social interventions be focused on improving episodic memory using episodic future thinking.