Identifying the Strategies for Sustainable Water Utilization Management of Qanats in Yazd Province, Iran

Sustainable management of water resources in Iran, which has historically suffered from water scarcity, is of great importance. Sustainable management of historical structures for the exploitation of water resources, the most prominent of which is the Qanats, seems to be very important, especially in the central plateau of Iran. So, the present study was conducted with the aim of identifying sustainable management strategies for water resources of Qanats in Yazd province, Iran. The present study was applied and was conducted by survey method. The statistical population included farmers directly exploiting the Qanats of Yazd province (N = 30662) of which 280 people were randomly selected as a sample with proportional assignment sampling method. The validity of the research instrument confirmed, using a panel of experts and its reliability confirmed, using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Data analysis was performed using two methods of descriptive statistics and analytical statistics (factor analysis and nonparametric comparative analysis) using SPSS21 software. The results of exploratory factor analysis of sustainable water use management strategies showed that six categories of legal strategies - protection, technical-production, research-educational and extension, participatory and preservation of indigenous knowledge, income diversity and environmental strategies could explain 70.645% of the total variance. Non-parametric U-Mann-Whitney comparative test showed that from the farmers' point of view, in almost all sustainable management strategies, the rate of implementation was significantly less than their importance. The findings provided suggestions to improve the situation of sustainable management of Qanats in the country.