Investigating the impact of watershed management projects on quality of life in rural areas of Ba-bol County

This study aimed to assess the impact of watershed management projects on quality of life in rural areas of Babol County. The statistical population includes 5225 heads of households in eight villages targeted for watershed management projects in Babol County in which 300 samples were selected by Cochran Formula. Based on appropriate allocation among three groups of villages with strong, medium and weak watershed management activities samples were selected. Random sampling method was used to select head of households within villages. A questionnaire was used in order to collect data and its face and content validity was verified using comments of faculty members and local experts and reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed according to calculate Cronbach's alpha between 0.68 to 0.96. Results of one-sample t-test showed that quality of life level in villages with strong and medium watershed management activities were lesser than average. While in villages with weak watershed management activities the level of quality of life was greater than average. Five components of quality of life were compared among three groups of villages through one-way ANOVA test. Result showed that average means of economical, physical and environmental components in villages with weak watershed management activities were better than two other groups. While assessing social components showed that the situation in villages with strong watershed management activities was better than other two groups. The results of this research revealed that large watershed management projects with long-term effect have on contribution on quality of life in rural areas. Moreover small biological projects which objective and tangible effect on livelihood activities has more contribution on quality of life in rural areas.