Socio-Cultural Impacts and Consequences of Managing the Release of Dam Reservoirs (Case study: Azad Dam)

The implementation of reservoir dams has caused the displacement of more than 80 million people. According to the present study, more than 2 million people have been affected by the construction of dams in Iran. The present study aims at investigating into the socio-cultural impacts and consequences of two methods of managing the release of dam reservoirs. Criticizing these two policies and consequences and identifying the causal, contextual, intervening, strategic occur. The research method is qualitative and the Grounded Theory is used. The study participants were 47 informants and local experts who were interviewed with a semi-structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed based on three methods of open, axial and selective coding. The results of the interview analysis included 391 general concepts, 118 subcategories, 21 main categories and 2 central categories. The research findings based on the paradigmatic model show the relative stability of social, cultural domains in relocation, resettlement policy, the disruption of social structure and cultural context in cash compensation policy. The results of the present study can be considered in terms of the necessity of changing the approaches, determining the social sphere and the need to monitor and evaluate the social impacts of the projects.