Abstract
This article intends to summarize the findings of studies on the relationship between farmers’ behavioral intentions (BI) and water-conservation behavior (WCB) using the theory of planned behavior (TPB). A systematic review of transcripts obtained from Internet-based searching on reliable scientific databases (e.g., SID, ProQuest, Springer, Science Direct, John Wiley, Sage, Taylor & Francis, Emerald Insight, and Google Scholar) was followed by outfitting data for the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software. Data from a total of 28 studies on WCB were synthesized and analyzed through the CMA procedure. The resulting evidence demonstrates that the total and summarized estimate point (i.e., correlation) for the associations of attitude (ATT), subjective norms (SNs), and perceived behavioral control (PBC) with BI was 0.46, 0.36, and 0.26, respectively (r(t)PBC < r(t) SNs < r(t)ATT → BI). Furthermore, the effect size of the relationship between PBC and WCB was 0.27. The largest effect size pertained to the relationship between BI and WCB (BI → WCB) (r(t)BI = 0.52). The take-home message of the article is that hypothetical statements of the TPB are confirmed, as would be hypothesized. These findings should still be regarded in the field of WCB research; thus, policymakers need to provide solutions and adapt their policy initiatives for water resource management based on these findings. For example, one of the solutions to improve water resource management based on the research results is to examine the views and realities constructed by farmers of water resources and related management styles before carrying out water resource management projects. Identifying the potential capabilities of farmers and their economic and social background to expand water-conservation behavior and the tendency and acceptance of water resource management project to be implemented is also an important requirement in making resource management projects effective. The use of various methods of the individual, group, and collective communication to interact with farmers combined with provision of extension training, as well as mobilizing and organizing farmers to facilitate effective management of water resources are recommended.
Highlights
Agriculture consumes the largest share of freshwater resources around the world [1,2].The FAO has called for environmentally friendly decisions and policy initiatives to be taken by water and irrigation authorities around the world to assist farmers in obtaining more reliable yields on the one hand and to optimize the amount of water consumed in their farming systems on the other hand [3]
The results showed that the effect size of correlation between perceived behavioral control (PBC) and water-conservation behavior (WCB) is 0.27, with lower and upper limits of 0.099 and 0.440, respectively
Attitude on the behavioral intention (BI) and showed the role of the psychological dimension and thought-based attitudes and the lens by which farmers see their environment, things, processes of farm of 20 management, and entities that they face, as they work in their farms
Summary
Agriculture consumes the largest share of freshwater resources around the world [1,2]. Sustainability cannot be achieved in agricultural water resource management by considering only biophysical and ecological conditions, allegedly hard systems; the stance of hard systems definitely depends on human features and reciprocal linkages, known as soft systems [4]. ATT → BI, SNs → BI, PBC → BI, PBC → WCB, and BI → WCB With this approach, the uncertainty about how the constructs of the TPB will affect each other will be reduced, and researchers can better use this evidence in establishing the hypothetical statements about the relationships between BI and WCB. Meta-analysis is a de facto tool for quantitatively analyzing and synthesizing research findings from a set of empirical studies [25,26] This analysis makes it possible to estimate the actual associations between TPB constructs.
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