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Integrating Social Science Perspectives in Water and Climate Change Management Research

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2022) | Viewed by 9870

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Masoud Yazdanpanah

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, Iran
Interests: innovation adoption; rural development; farmer decision making; climate change adaptation; innovation; water management
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Dr. Katharina Löhr

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Guest Editor

1. Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, (ZALF), 15374 Müncheberg, Germany
2. Division Urban Plant Ecophysiology, Humboldt University of Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Interests: resource conflicts; social cohesion; adoption; co-design
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Prof. Dr. Jorge Ruiz-Menjivar

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Guest Editor

Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
Interests: research methods; economic decision making

Dr. Tahereh Zobeidi

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Guest Editor

International Institute for Applied System Analysis, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Interests: climate change adaptation; farmer desicion making; disaster risk reduction; environmental behavior
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Dr. Stefan Sieber

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Guest Editor

Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Müncheberg, Germany
Interests: food and nutrition security; adaption on climate change; bioenergy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Population growth, agricultural intensification, rapid urbanization, and rising demand for energy have contributed to chronic water shortages in many parts of the world, particularly in the Global South. In addition, climate change has influenced the hydrological cycle, which increases the severity and frequency of extreme events such as droughts, and exacerbates the global water crisis.

The global water crisis calls for fundamental changes in food and agricultural production practices aligned with sustainability principles. At the micro-level and from a human dimension of climate change, producers—the largest consumers of freshwater resources—should adopt sustainable water management practices and climate-resilient strategies.

This Special Issue of Sustainability focuses on micro-level interactions between humans and the environment in the context of agricultural and food production. The aim is to further enhance our understanding of preceding processes of farmers’ adoption of sustainable water practices and climate change adaption strategies.

Prof. Dr. Masoud Yazdanpanah
Dr. Katharina Löhr
Prof. Dr. Jorge Ruiz-Menjivar
Dr. Tahereh Zobeidi
Dr. Stefan Sieber
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

farmer decision making
coping and adaptation strategies
climate change
water crisis
sustainable agriculture
quantitative and qualitative methods

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 717 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Why Have Economic Incentives Failed to Convince Farmers to Adopt Drip Irrigation in Southwestern Iran?

by Masoud Yazdanpanah, Kurt Klein, Tahereh Zobeidi, Stefan Sieber and Katharina Löhr

Sustainability 2022, 14(4), 2055; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042055 - 11 Feb 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2385

Abstract

Sustainable water usage is an important global concern and an urgent priority, especially in dryland regions such as Iran. The Iranian government is actively addressing the challenge of water scarcity by encouraging farmers to adopt new water application technology. Its main element to decrease water consumption is to encourage new irrigation systems, in particular drip irrigation. However, despite the benefits of drip irrigation technologies and the availability of generous government subsidies, adoption rates of the improved irrigation technology remain critically low among Iranian farmers. Therefore, this study seeks to determine what is limiting the uptake of improved irrigation technology in Iran. While it is well known that acceptance of new technology ultimately depends on multiple and interrelated factors, we examine those factors affecting farmers’ adoption from three theoretical perspectives in the adoption literature: farmers’ socio-economic characteristics, social capital, and technology characteristics. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in Behbahan district in Khuzestan province in southwest Iran. The sample comprises 174 farmers who adopted drip irrigation in that region and 100 non-adopters who were located in the same region. Discriminant analysis reveals that a socio-economic approach is the strongest model to predict adoption of drip irrigation technology in the study area, followed by models of technical characteristics, and social capital. These results can help agricultural extension agents and policy-makers design appropriate and effective strategies that facilitate the adoption of drip irrigation at an increasing rate. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Social Science Perspectives in Water and Climate Change Management Research)

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15 pages, 1841 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Developing and Analyzing the Agricultural Water Poverty Index in West Iran

by Leila Zoleikhaie Sayyar, Karim Naderi Mahdei, Hossein Shabanali Fami and Mahsa Motaghed

Sustainability 2022, 14(3), 1410; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031410 - 26 Jan 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1981

Abstract

Currently 60 percent of Iran’s land is located in water-stressed regions, where Hamedan is known as a semi-arid province and is also a province with a high population concentration with a dominant agricultural economy. For analyzing human-related crises we need multidimensional measures and AWPI has a socio-economical dimension and multidimensional criteria for assessing status. Hence, the purpose of the present study was to develop and evaluate the water resources status in the agriculture sector of Hamedan province using AWPI as a typical area in western Iran. The present applied study was conducted to evaluate the status of water poverty in the agriculture sector of Hamedan province using the Agricultural Water Poverty Index (AWPI). This index includes five components: resources, access, use, capacity, and environment. The indicators explaining each of the five components of AWPI were collected from different literature and the data were collected using databases, statistics, and the national census of 2016. A total of five principal components and 55 indicators were developed and were used to evaluate the status of water resources. The value of the composite AWPI was developed by the weighted mean of the five principal components. The data were analyzed using SPSS and GIS software. The components, criteria, and sub-criteria of AWPI were weighted using the principal components analysis. The mean AWPI for Hamedan province was 40.55, which indicates that the province is placed in the middle to high water poverty status and this poverty is mostly due to the components of resources, capacity, access, and use. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Social Science Perspectives in Water and Climate Change Management Research)

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17 pages, 12908 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessing the Vulnerability of Rural Households to Floods at Pol-e Dokhtar Region in Iran

by Somayeh Ahmadi, Rezvan Ghanbari Movahed, Saeed Gholamrezaie and Mehdi Rahimian

Sustainability 2022, 14(2), 762; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020762 - 11 Jan 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2336

Abstract

The agricultural sector in rural areas is seriously affected by climate change, affecting agricultural production and farming communities. This paper investigates rural households’ vulnerability to floods in the seven agricultural-based regions of Pol-e Dokhtar, south of Lorestan Province, Iran. The primary data for the vulnerability indicators were collected from 322 households. Three main components of vulnerability, including exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, were measured using the obtained data. The weighting of indicators was done by the MSF method and using MATLAB software. The results showed that the social and economic characteristics of households affect their vulnerability to floods. The Jayder, Mamolan, and Afrineh regions, which were more exposed to floods, had less capacity for adaptation. The results showed that the most vulnerable communities could be described by characteristics such as low levels of agricultural insurance, limited access to credit, low levels of income diversification, high levels of unemployment, low levels of social capital, higher dependency ratios, and poor infrastructure. This research showed that diversified livelihoods have a significant effect on reducing farmers’ sensitivity to floods. The study proposes policy implications to increase resilience and reduce farmers’ vulnerability to floods. The government and other development partners should prioritize the most vulnerable areas by improving their access to finance and providing the technical assistance required for increasing their coping capacity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Social Science Perspectives in Water and Climate Change Management Research)

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20 pages, 3091 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Farmers’ Contributions to Achieving Water Sustainability: A Meta-Analytic Path Analysis of Predicting Water Conservation Behavior

by Bijan Abadi and Girma Kelboro

Sustainability 2022, 14(1), 279; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010279 - 28 Dec 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2179

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) P B C}

r_{(t) S N s}

r_{(t) A T T}

→ 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) B I}

= 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. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Social Science Perspectives in Water and Climate Change Management Research)

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