Volume 10, Issue 35 (Spring 2021 2021)
serd 2021, 10(35): 137-154 |
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Ahmadi M. Role of agriculture water resource management in development of rural regions; a case study Ghani Beiglou County (Zanjan township). serd 2021; 10 (35) :137-154
URL: http://serd.khu.ac.ir/article-1-3672-en.html
URL: http://serd.khu.ac.ir/article-1-3672-en.html
Assistant Prof. in Geography & Rural Planning, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran , Ahmadi.manijeh@znu.ac.ir
Abstract: (3511 Views)
Introduction
The poor management of water demand in Iran has led to increasing demand for this vital source and wasting great amount of this material. Therefore, water resources management has been declared as the most important socio-economic subject, and it is vital to find useful solutions in order to manage this resource sustainably. In this path, despite the location of Ghani Beiglou Rural District near the water-rich-river called Mirjan, the water balance of this area had been violated due to over use and lack of rainfall in the way that some of the villages in this area had no choice unless to get water access rationed. On the other hand, the life of almost 80 percent of villagers depends on agriculture, which is no longer possible due to lack of water. Therefore, shortage in water resources in this territory had caused vital problems such as not using water consumption sufficient policies in the time of crisis, no support of new suitable irrigation methods from the government, decrease in agriproducts efficiency, decrease in employment, investment and income of the agriculture sector. Finally, identifying the factors and solutions in water resource management could be an effective step for improving the water resource management in agricultural sector in this region. Therefore, purpose of present study is to analyze and assess rural sustainable water management in Ghani Beiglou Rural District.
Reseach Methods
This study has applied purpose, and it is descriptive-analytical in nature. Data have been gathered by library and field methods. Statistical population is rural farmer families in Ghani Beiglou villages in Zanjan District. According to 2013 agricultural survey, this district has 2054 farmer households, and the area of cultivated land is 21892 hectares. This rural district has 32 villages in its territory. We found out that among these 32 villages the water resource management projects had been designed for and applied on just five villages including Ebrahim Abad, Mirjan, Mehrabad, Andabad Olia and Andabad Sofla. So these five villages are this study’s sample. This village have 631 farmers according to 2013 agricultural census. Among them we chose 160 individuals for analysis using Cochran sampling formula. Simple accidental sampling was used in each village, and in order to analyze the descriptive-inferential data of questionnaires, we used descriptive-inferential methods.
Discussion and Conclusion
The results of water resource management show that Mehrabad Village with score of 90.44 is in better situation, also in rural sustainable development, and economic aspect compare to four other villages. Andabad Olia Village is in the better condition with numerical average of 123.9, for social aspect Mirjan Village with numerical average of 108.84, for livability dimension Andbad Sofla Village with numerical average of 87.6, and for physical aspect Andabad Sofla Village have better situation compare to others. Moreover, results show that there is a significant relationship between sufficient water resource management and sustainable development of rural areas in significant level of 0.01 and the correlation rate of 0.315. Besides all these, water resource management has impact on rural sustainable development by the level of 0.271. For aspect of the amount of BETA, highest impact is for the index of knowledge and awareness with the amount of 0.522 and the institutional index of 0.036 has the second highest effect on rural development.
The recent droughts and water shortages in the region and its negative impacts on agriculture led to consequences such as decreasing in income, employment rate, investment and increasing in unemployment and job elimination and migration rate to cities. People of some of these villages had acted to sufficiently mange the water resource based on their limited and unreflecting knowledge about modern irrigation methods, on their own and/or in few cases with getting help from the government and Agricultural-Jahad Organization, even though their help is not even close to enough. As a result, Mehrabad Village is a case that is more successful than other villages in developing the sufficient water management with numerical average of 90.44 due to more individual involvement of villagers. Also, this improvement in applying such project had positive impacts on rural sustainable development and agriculture. Marjan Village for aspect of level of rural sustainable development in different economic, social, environmental and Physical dimensions is at a better situation than other villages with numeric average of 0.96. Furthermore, its been found that there is a positive relationship between sufficient water resource management, rural sustainable development and agriculture sector in this region has a vital role in providing required food, producing raw material for industry, employment and creating income. Therefore, in order to reach a more and well managed agriculture development and take steps towards rural sustainable development, this region needs to use water resources sufficiently. Finally results show that each one of the water resource management indexes has different impact on the rural sustainable development, and among them the highest impact is for the index of knowledge and awareness with Beta amount of 0.522.
Keywords: Water resource management, rural development, economic development, sustainable development, rural regions, Zanjan
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