Territorial Cooperation for Exploitation of Qanat through Grounded Theory Method (Case Study: Qanat of Hasan Abad – Yazd Province)

This paper takes up the qanat of Hassan Abad and its special peculiarities which made it eligible to be nominated as UNESCO World Heritage in 2015. Hasan Abad originates from Ebrahim Abad valley near the town of Mehriz and travels 40 kilometers to Yazd. The water of this qanat is shared out between the town of Mehriz, the village of Dehno and Yazd (district of Hasan Abad). One of the most important properties of this qanat is its territorial cooperation which is resulted from a lax territorial behavior caused by the qanat’s dynamics. Dormant territorial behavior can pave the way for a high sense of cooperation and social capital, which are all associated with the peculiarities of the qanat. In the region, the social foundation which has been formed and evolved around the water resources management could have increased the sense of cooperation. Through the research method of grounded theory, this paper tries to answer the question of how a water current like the qanat of Hasan Abad can pave the way for such social convergence and cooperation between three beneficiary territories.