Community Participation in Watershed Management Programs

Problem statement: Several studies in other countries had shown the influence of socio demographic, knowledge, satisfaction and attitudinal factors in level of community participation in development programs. The question here is, whether these factors would also be effective on community participation in other countries? Determine the factors which are influence community participation in order to enhance their participation in Watershed Management Programs (WMP) in Iran. Approach: A cross sectional survey design was carried out for this study. Data were collected from 200 respondents which are randomly selected from three villages in Hable-Rud basin. Data were gathered through personal interviews by using a questionnaire. Descriptive analysis, Pearson product moment analysis and multiple regression analysis were employed to analyze the data. Results: Findings of this study showed that satisfaction of prior program had highest relationship with level of participation (r=0.518, p=0.000), followed by Attitude toward WMP (r=0.489, p=0.000) Knowledge of WMP (r=0.435, p=0.000), total monthly income (r=0.177, p=0.012 and alternative monthly income (r=0.158, p=0.025). However multiple regression analysis discovered that, among them four independent variables are important for explaining variation in the levels of participation. These variables were; satisfaction of prior programs, attitude toward WMP, knowledge of WMP and alternative income and explained 43.6% of variation in the level of participation. Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that high level of satisfaction of prior programs, positive attitude toward WMP, high knowledge of WMP and high level of income increase the level of community participation in WMP in Iran. This study also provided a number of implications and suggestion to increase the level of participation in WMP