Responsibility Analysis of Water User's Associations and Barriers for its Formation from the Viewpoint of Stakeholders

Irrigation management transfer to farmers is one of the important and necessary issues for irrigation planners globally. Irrigation management transfer or participatory irrigation management by water users’ associations (WUA) is a widespread strategy in the world and a good way to remove the country''s irrigation and drainage systems problems. The main objective of this research was responsibility analysis and barriers survey of water user association’s from the viewpoint of stakeholders. Population of study included all farmers of Feyzabad water supply network in the Fars Province (192 farmers). Sample size as estimated by stratified random sampling method was 127. A questionnaire was used to collect data whose face validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and pilot test was performed to evaluate its reliability، with the Cronbach''s alpha values for responsibilities and barriers of 0. 79 and 0. 86، respectively. The results revealed that the responsibilities of WUAs from the viewpoint of stakeholders were categorized in four groups: protection of irrigation networks، institutional responsibilities and agronomic responsibility، while for the barriers of WUAs، the four categorize were: social، organizational، awareness and knowledge، and farmers’ management barriers. Protection and operation of the irrigation network were the main responsibilities from the viewpoint of stakeholders. Therefore، it is recommended that، firstly، the responsibility of the irrigation network protection and exploitation be handed over to WUA، then، after capacity building and empowering of the stakeholders، the other responsibilities could be transferred to them.