Stakeholders Management in Rainfall Enhancement Project of Oman

Abstract

Stakeholder management is instrumental in the success of a project and thus in the present study, different dimensions of stakeholder management were critically evaluated in the context of the rainfall enhancement project in Oman. The rainfall enhancement project, using the ionization technique, is among the major national projects recently undertaken by the Omani government to confront the country’s scarcity of water resources. Oman showed an interest in artificial rainfall in 2013, setting up an ambitious project that includes 12 ionization stations. The government decided to implement the Australian experience in artificial rainfall. This method is used by experts in the field to enhance the amount of rain by emitting ions with favourable climatic conditions. Oman appointed a local enterprise to establish the artificial rainfall project by implementing the Australian method, using the ATLANT system (Figure 1), which has proven to be statistically successful. Although ATLANT technology has only recently come to light, attempts at rainfall manipulation have been ongoing for decades. Rain enhancement technology was introduced as far back as the Second World War. The government has started to make the 12 potential stations operational, either by appointing the same company to manage them or by managing the project themselves through the Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources. Five years into the project, there had been a noticeable increase in rainfall. It rose by 18% between 2013 and 2017, a result that encouraged the state to carry the project forward to completion. The work done has considered the view of relevant literature, and data has been collected through a structured questionnaire passed to 332 participants who are considered to be stakeholders. The study hypotheses have been formulated on the basis of study propositions, and a conceptual model has been proposed to be tested in this study. It also details the key concepts in project management success and stakeholder satisfaction. The study focuses on critical success factors in project management and their impact on project management success and on stakeholder satisfaction. The work aims to identify the critical success factors contributing to project management success and to ascertain their applicability to and suitability for rainfall enhancement projects of the kind used here as a case study.