Instability of Agricultural Water Resources and Rural Development in Rafsanjan Plain

Drought or instability of agricultural water resources has effects in various economic, social, political, environmental, etc. dimensions, especially in rural settlements. In this research, the relationship between the instability of water resources in the agricultural sector and rural development in the form of environmental, economic and social dimensions in the rural settlements of Rafsanjan plain has been investigated. The research method is descriptive-analytical and based on a quantitative method. Based on Cochran's formula, the number of questionnaires from 53263 rural households or small towns with the rural economies is estimated to be 380, and during the research and based on the limitations and removal of incorrect questionnaires, the number of samples reached 313. Questionnaires have been distributed in 16 rural districts. Then, the average of economic, social and environmental indicators, migration and quantity and quality of water were analyzed in SPSS software and the results were analyzed to measure significance in independent one-sample, binomial or binomial and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. The results of the research show that the investigated environmental indicators with an average of 3.99, economic indicators with an average of 3.88 and social indicators with an average of 4.004 on the five-point Likert scale are affected by drought. Based on this, after the occurrence of water scarcity or drought, the natural and human environment is affected and the rural development in the environmental, social and economic dimensions in the Rafsanjan Plain is disrupted and issues such as the reduction of the area under agricultural cultivation, income reduction, and land subsidence have led to poverty, unemployment, immigration and environmental consequences.