Analysis of Institutional Constraints to Groundwater Resources Management in Aleshtar Township of Lorestan Province

Groundwater crisis has become a major problem in Lorestan province. Meanwhile, Aleshtar township is one of the cities affected by this crisis. While there are several reasons for the underlying groundwater crisis in the township, one of the most important challenges facing this township can be due to the institutional constraints by stakeholders involved in groundwater resources management. Thus, this study describes institutional constraints to groundwater resource management in Aleshtar using grounded theory approach. Participants were 24 key informants involved in the groundwater resources management in Aleshtar township that to select the samples, targeted sampling approach using snowball sampling technique was used. Thus, participants were interviewed in-depth and interviews were recorded and transcribed for qualitative analysis. In the present study, the result of open coding was the extraction of 170 concepts and 43 sub-categories. Based on the paradigm model, the core category identified in this research was “institutional structural and functional weakness” which found to be related to other categories of meanings. The result show that, the most important context conditions the occurrence of the phenomenon were “farmers weak financial vigor”, “cultural elements as barriers to groundwater resources management” and “traditional agriculture”. The results of research on the causal conditions affecting the occurrence of this phenomenon indicate “irregular and excessive harvesting of groundwater resources” and “weak control and monitoring” as the most important causes. In this study, “climate change” and "poor performance of secondary institutions involved in groundwater resources management" were among the most important intervening condition that have led to the intensification of the phenomenon. The most important action/interaction strategies of institutions to overcome the phenomenon were the sub-categories of “implementing water engineering and control” and “farmers participation”. Finally, implementing action/interaction strategies can have both positive and negative consequences. The most important positive consequences was “improvements to farming”. However, the most important negative consequences included “destruction of natural resources” and “occurrence of economic problems” and “occurrence of social problems”.