Investigation and ranking of Managerial Factors of Land Degradation and Desertification in the Sistan plain

Impacts on over one-third of the world population, human and social causes of desertification remain identifying desertification drivers in the Sistan region in the southeast of Iran. We have evaluated managerial drivers that specifically contribute to the Sistan desertification. For this purpose, we followed a three-step survey with questionnaires prepared for each step of the survey. The three-step survey included: i) Identifying overall contributing factors ii) organizing candidate factors in 8 categories and iii) identifying and ranking the main factors based on their important role in desertification. The questionnaires were prepared and data were collected in collaboration with managers, experts, and administrators involved in combating desertification at the provincial level. Based on correlation statistics and multivariate analyses, the average contribution (%) of group to land degradation and desertification of the Sistan region, Desert management issues exhibited the highest fraction (33.47%), followed by Weakness of laws and regulation (15.43%), deficit studies and knowledge (13.76%), Farmland mismanagement (10.81%), soil issues (8.0%), unsuitable farmer's customs (6. 6%), water mismanagement (6.1%) while the contribution from the rest, Animal husbandry is 5.81 percent. also, more than 46 factors out of 72 resulted as significant in affecting land degradation and desertification in the Sistan region. Among them, the most important were Lack of integrated Hamoun watershed management, absolute responsible in combating desertification to FRWO, no allocating water to Ecological targets, no coordinating in combat desertification between stakeholders, deficit holistic plan for combat Desertification. Results contribute to the development of a deeper conception among decision-makers, experts and regional administrators appropriate tools for assessing the effectiveness of land management practices for contrasting land degradation and desertification.