Identifying livelihood strategies and its effective factors of agricultural water well operators in South Khorasan province

The Purpose of this paper was to identify livelihood strategies of agricultural water well operators in South Khorasan province. The statistical population of this research was all well operators (N=41232) and sample size using Cochran formula 237 well operators were estimated. The research tool was check list and questionnaires. Drought data was collected from the website of the Meteorological Organization. Survey data were analyzed using SPSS24 software and meteorological data were analyzed using DIPP software. The results showed that there are three strategies among well operators: direct dependent, indirect dependent and non-dependent on agricultural water. In the first strategy, the operators are more than the other two groups in terms of the average variables of age and history of agricultural activity, and also in terms of the two variables, the share of owned agricultural water and the number of participation in the training class are less than the other two groups. Also, agricultural water well operators with indirect dependent livelihood strategy in terms of average age, water well operation history and agricultural experience are between the other two groups. Also, the results of correlation test showed that there is a positive relationship between agricultural water well operation history, agricultural experiences, participation in training classes, the number of water hours owned by the operator, agricultural water availability, drought severity and drought duration with livelihood diversity index.