Abstract
Previous studies have shown that enhancing adaptive capacity can reduce vulnerability of farmers to water scarcity and improve their resiliency against environmental changes in the Social-Ecological Systems (SES). The present study aims to evaluate, measure, and compare the dimensions of farmers’ adaptive capacity in rural areas in west of Iran facing escalating water scarcity in the recent years. Since that adaptive capacity is a key factor in community resilience, the relationship between considered adaptive capacity dimensions with increasing resilience of the study area was also investigated. Furthermore, the influence and dependency of each item of the dimensions of adaptive capacity has been measured by the Cross Impact Analysis (CIA) method. For this purpose, 175 farmers in 6 villages in Borujerd County, Lorestan province, Iran were selected for examining the content, structure, and important dimensions of their adaptive capacity. Adopting the survey methodology, this study used the whole network approach to identify the agricultural water users in the ecologic boundaries of the selected villages. The t-values for the most important dimensions with highest effects on the adaptive capacity of the rural communities in the study area including “water governance”, “innovation” and “information, and awareness” were 5.56, 5.49 and 4.15, respectively confirming the Structural Equations Modeling (SEM) and Friedman statistical test results. The t-values less than 1.96 for “Local networks”, “trust in government”, “financial sources and infrastructures”, as well as “adaptive management” showed insignificance of these dimensions in the adaptive capacity of farmers in the study area. Based on the results of the adaptive capacity analysis, suggestions for enhancing resilience of the farmer communities against water scarcity were provided.
Published Version
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