Analyzing Effective Actors towards Sustainable Groundwater Resources Management in the Karkheh-Olia Catchment

The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyze the key actors of groundwater resources with a focus on sustainability in the Karkheh-Olia catchment in which the future research approach and actor analysis technique (Mactor) were used. The information was collected through interviews and actor-actor and actor-target questionnaires. The sample included 11 subject experts and university professors in the form of three three-person panels and one two-person panel, which were selected purposefully. The results showed that 16 actors are effective in this field, and Program and Budget Organization and the Islamic Parleman are the most competitive actors scoring 2.50 and 2.13 points, respectively. In contrast to non-governmental/civil organizations, the Housing Foundation and the private sector were the most uncompetitive actors who have scored 0.06, 0.2, and 0.4 respectively. In addition, the results showed that according to their goals and mission, most of the actors agree more to achieve two goals, including development of non-agricultural jobs in rural communities and development of infrastructure to attract investments, which were assigned 27.8 and 21.2 points respectively. According to the results, most of the actors have divergence (pursuing separate goals) and their degree of convergence (agreement to realize the common goal) in the planning and policy-making of water resources management is at a weak level compared to each other, which should be seriously addressed in the plannings and policy-makings of water resources management.