Integrated management of agricultural water resources among paddy farmers in northern Iran

While growing populations and increasing water requirements are a certainty, there is a big uncertainty about how these requirements will be affected by human activities. Given the importance of integrated management as a tool for optimum management of water resources by farmers under water deficit conditions, the general objective of the present study was to identify factors underpinning integrated management of agricultural water by paddy farmers in Langarud County of Guilan Province in northern Iran. For this purpose, a survey of paddy farmers was conducted. The irrigation canals were the most widely used source of water in local paddy farms (44.0%) followed by rivers (28.1%). The majority of the paddy farmers (70.6%) were using more than one water resource for irrigating their fields. The farmers believed that 'post-rice succession planting', 'cropping pattern and land use change', and 'fuel subsidy' were the most important factors affecting integrated management of agricultural water. Using exploratory factor analysis, five factors affecting integrated management of agricultural water among paddy farmers were revealed: i) availability of irrigation infrastructure, ii) cropping pattern, iii) supportive role of local institutes, iv) irrigation experience, and v) traditional beliefs. These factors together captured 60.1% of the total variance in the management of agricultural water. According to cluster analysis and factors identified by factor analysis, paddy farmers using integrated water resources were classified in three clusters: i) modernists (37.1%) who showed the strongest motivation response to changes and they generally showed a high reaction to most motivational factors, ii) conservatives (34.7%) who tended to resist the change and were more satisfied with the current conditions, and iii) holists (28.2%) who showed a favorable response to motivational factors, but they were not pioneers. The findings provide a better understanding of paddy farmers' drivers for integrated management of agricultural water that could assist policy-makers to focus on strategies for improving irrigation water productivity and supporting more sustainable water use in rice production in the study area and similar arid cropping regions of the world.