Perspectives on Barriers to Peoples Participation in Watershed Management Plans in South of Arad, the Ray County

Understanding the barriers in achieving people¢s persistent participation, resolving problems and participating in watershed management plans have an important role to play in increasing the effectiveness of the watershed management plans and reducing the related costs. Arad district is located in Ray County, the Province of Tehran, and is one of such areas where has been implemented the operational proposals from detailed studies of watershed management implemented. Several factors may contribute to a lack of people¢s participation in watershed management plans. These factors were identified by experts based on desk studies, queries from experts, as well as face-to-face interviews with residents of the area as four indicators and 11 sub-indicators, whereby their validity were confirmed by experts. These indicators were prioritized based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process method as well as the Friedman nonparametric test based on the expert group (28 experts) and the residents based on the sample size derived from Cochrane's formula (220 locals). The two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was also used to examine the agreement of the two views on the importance of the items. The range of consistency ratio of judgments and Cronbach's alpha varied from 0.035 to 0.079 and 0.710 to 0.815, respectively. Accordingly, the priority of effective indicators and sub-indicators on a lack of people participation from the viewpoint of expert and residents from the importance of high to low were determined and an agreement of the views was established. It is suggested that the solutions to remove the barriers of participation, be considered in the future detailed studies of watershed management in the study area based on the priorities presented in this investigation.