Individual-institutional dysfunction and collective cooperation: The study of farmers’ understanding in Semiram about water scarcity in urban life.

This research examines the semantic understanding of Semiram farmers regarding water scarcity. The grounded theory research method, a systematic approach, was used to achieve this objective. The research participants consisted of Semiram farmers. The sampling method employed was purposeful, resulting in 25 farmers being interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. The interviews were analyzed using the three-step coding method of grounded theory. The findings revealed that several causal conditions contribute to water scarcity in Semiram, including changing patterns, inefficient governance, and climate changes. To address water scarcity, farmers have proposed three strategies: strengthening traditions of cooperation, fostering an environmental culture, and promoting alternative industrialism. The realization of these strategies is influenced by economic policies and water resources management. Economic individualism and limited financial resources act as hindering factors for coping strategies related to water scarcity. According to the farmers' perspective, the consequences of implementing these strategies include economic life reconstruction, social life reconstruction, and environmental life reconstruction. Furthermore, individual-institutional inefficiency and cooperation emerge as central categories in the farmers' semantic understanding of water scarcity in Semiram. The result showed that water scarcity is under the influence of both individual and institutional categories. Therefore, the strategies to face it are also individual-institutional and the consequences of these strategies are also the same.