Assessment of sustainability of agriculture water management from the perspective of Wheat farmers in villages of Maragheh City in Iran

The present study aims to evaluate the sustainability of water resources management among wheat farmers in the villages of Maragheh City in Iran. This study is applied research conducted using a survey method. The statistical population includes all irrigated wheat farmers in Maragheh City (N=240). According to Krejcie and Morgan’s table, the statistical sample size is estimated to be 149. The samples are selected using the stratified sampling method. A correlation test and a multiple regression analysis are used to analyze the data and the Radar is used to assess the sustainability of agricultural water resources management. The results indicate that there is a direct and significant relationship between the farmers’ application of measures related to sustainable water resources management and their attitudes toward sustainable water resources management, agronomic, economic, educational extensional, policy making, and institutional factors, the area under cultivation, and income. Moreover, there is an inverse and significant relationship between the farmers’ application of measures related to sustainable water resources management and membership in rural organizations. The results of multiple regression analysis, which is used to investigate the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable (the application of measures related to sustainable water resources management in agriculture) show that five variables of economic, educational extensional, social, and agronomic factors and farmers’ attitudes toward sustainable water resources management explain about 63% of the variance of the dependent variable. From the perspective of irrigated wheat farmers in Maragheh City, the sustainability of agricultural water resources management is evaluated to be at a moderate level according to the total scores obtained for them.