Viability in Drought and Social Risks by Farmers in the Use of Urban Wastewater

The drought phenomenon in recent years has severely affected agricultural production and food security. Farmers also use urban wastewater to continue production, maintain viability, and supply irrigation water to farms. This is despite the fact that farmers may not have enough knowledge about the risks of using urban wastewater. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of farmers' viability in drought conditions and the perceived social risks on their behavior of using urban wastewater. This study was conducted among the farmers of Sistan region. A sample of 361 farmers was taken by the stratified random sampling. The research instrument was a questionnaire which its content and face validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and discriminant validity. In addition, using Cronbach's alpha and the composite reliability indices, the reliability of research tool was approved. Data processing was done using SPSSwin23 and AMOS22 software. The results showed that the indicators used for the measurement of the research variables were acceptably consistent with the factor structure and theoretical underpinning of the research. The results indicated that the means of the activist public-sphere behaviors, non-activist public-sphere behaviors, private-sphere behaviors, and organizational behaviors were significantly lower than the mean interval of the variables. The findings of the structural equation modeling showed that farmers' viability in drought conditions and perceived social risks have had a significant effect on their behavior of using urban wastewater. Furthermore, 75.8% of the variance of farmers’ behavior of using urban wastewater was captured by their viability in drought conditions and perceived social risks.