Identifying and providing solutions for optimal drinking water management (A Case study; villages of Tabriz county)

Considering the importance of drinking water in the rural areas, identifying and paying more attention to the factors concerning wasteful and improper consumption of water would be an appropriate approach to pinpoint the hazardous risks in this regard. This article, investigates the status of drinking water in Tabriz villages and identifies the effective factors on water consumption and also determines the weight impact of each one. Finally it prioritizes the factors and provides strategies for optimal management of drinking water consumption in the villages of the county. The results obtained from the field treatment information with 1320 questionnaires filled by the consumers, 28 experts, 44 villages in addition with undergoing factor analysis and cluster analysis suggest that elements such as management, cultural, health, welfare, technological, legal, economical, psychological, and social factors . are among the most important ones behind the improper consumption of drinking water. According to the analysis model, after identifying the weaknesses, threats, strengths and opportunities, four strategies are recommended. These are 15 defensive strategies, 8 competitive strategies, 23 review strategies and 14 diversity strategies. Furthermore, the content an face validity of the research tool used for this research was reviewed and confirmed by professional the reliability of questionnaires was also confirmed by using Cronbach's alpha in the preliminary study with a sample size of 82 individuals and value of 0/71. The various internal and external weaknesses and threats, reasons and causes of wasteful consumption in the field of water consumption are far more than of its internal and external strengths and opportunities. This indicates the low threshold of vulnerability of this city in terms of regional development in the area of drinking water therefore it is necessary to exploit defensive and review strategies to address the issues of the weaknesses and threatening risks of the region