The Effect of Demographic Variables on the Estimation of Agricultural Water Consumption in Iran (2007-2014)

In the new theories of environmental demography, in addition to population size, population composition including age and sex composition, educational and subsistence composition is also identified as a factor that affects the population behavior with the environment. Inspired by these theories, this paper aims to explain the differences in agricultural water use in Iran, at the county (Shahrestan) level based on various demographic components. The data for the study is drawn from the combination of three databases of national population and housing census, national agricultural census and national survey based on the county unit, and analyzed by using the Partial Squares Structural Equation Modeling. The results indicate that although population and household size have been the dominant demographic variable affecting agricultural water consumption, subsistence composition, sex composition and rural age dependency ratio,as wll as educational composition of agricultural beneficiaries have also impacted the agricultural water consumption directly or through the land area or cultivation pattern combination.