Application of Water Management Strategies by Small Scale Farmers in Drought Conditions in the Isfahan Province

Drought is one of the most serious natural disasters in terms of extent and magnitude of the economic damage it entails and the irreparable damages it causes to the agricultural sector and the water resources of the country. This research study was conducted to investigate water management solutions by small scale farmers in drought conditions in the Isfahan province. This study is based on the nature of quantitative research, it is of the non-exponential type in terms of control of variables, and it is done by the descriptive-correlation method in terms of method and it is in the form of applied research. The statistical population consists of all small-scale farmers in the Isfahan province and the study was done in drought conditions. According to the statistics center of Iran, the total number of small scale farmers in the Isfahan province is about 166030 people. The sample size in this group was selected to be 394 people using the Morgan’s table. The sample size in this group was determined using Morgan table and a sample of 394 persons were chosen by the proportional allocation method. The main instrument for collecting data is a questionnaire whose face validity was confirmed by professors and its reliability was confirmed by the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.95). The results show that small-scale farmers use various methods for water management in dealing with droughts that were identified through factor analysis in three categories of water management, farm-management, technical management, information management and social capital management.