Investigating Local Communitie's Views Regarding the Impact of Behesht Abad Dam Construction on the Dependency of Local Households on Natural Resources

Constructing reservoir dams for water storage has been proposed as one of the main approaches for managing water shortage challenges in recent decades, but these programs can have various positive and negative impacts on local communities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of local communities towards the potential environmental impacts of dam construction and the inter-basin water transmission on natural resources and capitals and the vulnerability of the dependency of these communitie's households on these capitals. The research was conducted in the BeheshtAbad Watershed, located in the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province through studying rural and urban local communities of the watershed who would likely be affected if the dam were constructed. In this survey, a sample of 200 out of 3514 households was selected using a multi-stage sampling technique and the data were collected through a structured interview technique using a questionnaire. From the perspective of local communities, the dam construction would cause the destruction of natural resources, reducing natural capitals of local household livelihoods and increasing their vulnerability. These views were significantly influenced by the extent of household's livelihood dependency on natural resources, having main employment in agriculture sector, land area, animal number, and the quality of existing natural capitals. This shows that from the perspective of local communities, if the dam is constructed, it is expected that natural resources are degraded and farmers, livestock holders and other households dependent on natural resources are faced with much more vulnerability.