Investigating the Effect of Water and Soil Conservation Technologies on Water Consumption, Wheat yield and Rural Poverty in Mond Watershed Basin of Iran

Soil and water conservation technologies are increasingly being developed as an option to create food security and reduce poverty. This study aimed at investigating the effects of the simultaneous application of water and soil conservation activities at the field level in Mond watershed basin of Iran (in 2017) as well as the effects of these technologies on wheat yield, water consumption and rural poverty. For this purpose, the Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model was used in the context of counterfactual analysis to eliminate the bias caused by the unobservable heterogeneity in the regression analysis of the cross-sectional data. The study results showed that using soil and water conservation measures rather than conventional ones in cultivation would result in reducing the consumed water and the poverty gap by 3160 cubic meters and 37 percent, respectively, and the yield would increase by 1.83 tons. The results of this study might be used to plan for removing barriers and developing the application of soil and water conservation technologies.