Water Stakeholders and Institution Analysis for Sustainability of Agricultural Water Resources (Case Study Zayandehrud Catchment Area)

Climate and drought conditions in recent years have faced the Zayandehrud catchment area with the challenge of water resources sustainability. The sustainability of water resources will be achieved by institutions appropriate to the basin conditions and stakeholders. The purpose of this study was to identify the water boady and its components in Zayandehrood catchment. Statistical population of this study were Water experts of Zayandehrud catchment (N=312). Data collection tools were questionnaire in the quantitative part and structured interview in the qualitative part. The sampling size in quantitative part was determined to be 173 individuals using Cochran formula. The sampling approach in the qualitative part was purposeful and 15 individuals were selected by snowball method. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling (lisrel8.8 software) and the rainbow diagram. The findings indicate that the Ministry of Energy, the Agricultural Jihad and their subordinate organizations are the key players at the basin level. The results also showed that the water institution has three components of water management, water policy and water laws, whose standardized coefficients were 0.64, 0.53 and 0.80, respectively. All three components were significant at 99% confidence level.