Conflict Management on Use of Watershed Resources

Abstract

This study was an action research of conflict management on use of watershed resources. There are five provinces were involved as study location, namely Loei, Chaiyapoom, Hnongbualampoo, Khon Kaen and Kalasin. The research action was conducted in three phases consisting of studying current situation, problems and needs of community, then followed by analyzing stakeholders of the Pong watershed and the factors affecting to community conflict on the use of water resources by focus group discussions, and finally developing community participation on conflict resolution of water resources by community dialogue. The samples were representatives of 335 households. Data collection was accomplished through questionnaire, focus group discussion and community dialogue. Data was analyzed as percentage and descriptive conclusion. The findings from the first phase indicated that the conflict of water use had been existed due to the increasing of water demand while there is a shortage of water supply. The community need an equity principle on water use for both agriculture and consumption. Consequently, the finding of the second phase revealed that the significant factor affecting to conflict was the one who took advantage of water use from the Pong river. The indirect stakeholders were factory owners and the direct stakeholders were the community who stay along the Pong river. The result from the third phase showed that the conflict management of utilizing watershed resource could be accomplished through the recognition to the senior people, relatives and religious institutes. The most important factor was to provide the platform for meeting, advising, training, knowledge sharing, to discuss about the problems and planning for conflict resolution including network for cooperation on the use of watershed resources.