Determining the mode and regime of the water governance in the face of environmental changes from the perspective of institution and local stakeholders

Water is a source of life, even when it is abundant. In the last few years, the unreal certainty of water services in Iran has caused institutional structures of water to be unsuitable and incompatible with environmental changes, and when water-related crises such as drought, flood occurrence and in the larger scale, climate change, are capable of flexibility and resilient in the face of these changes. In this regard, the recognition of the present governance system in the country is considered essential. Therefore, in this study, mode and regime of water governance were studied in one of the problem areas of water scarcity. In order to determine the mode of governance, questionnaires were used in two levels of the institution and local stakeholders. In order to determine the regime of governance, formal and informal institutional network analysis method was used in the Arsanjan, Neyriz, Kherameh and Estahban counties. The results of the governance mode showed that in ten sub-functions of governance under consideration, the more hierarchical mode has been observed. In addition, the results of the analysis of the institutional network also showed that the current governance regime in all four counties is a centralized (Rent-seeking) regime, which is considered a hierarchical governance mode feature. Finally, the combination of methods of governance and arrival to meta-governance is proposed.