Methods of Sustainable Agricultural Water Management in Hamedan Province

The purpose of this study was to delineate methods of sustainable agricultural water management. The study is based on a mixed methodology, namely both quantitative and qualitative. The statistical population included 130 water experts in Hamedan province. In the qualitative phase, 35 participants were purposefully selected, but, in the quantitative phase, there were 100 experts selected randomly according to Krejcie and Morgan’s sampling table. In order to identify the relationships between the independent variables (i.e. solutions to water management) and the dependent variable (i.e. sustainable agricultural water management), structural equation modeling was used through the PLS algorithm. The results showed that 55 % of the dependent variable variance was determined by 13 independent variables. Of these variables, the irrigation planning solution proved to be the main solution with the highest impact and a coefficient of 0.275. The next five factors with great effects on sustainable agricultural water management included applied and continuous training, water recycling, water transfer efficiency, information sharing, and reducing agricultural wastes with impact coefficients of  0.269, 0.247, 0.209, 0.197, and 0.172 respectively.