Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Scientific Board, Khorasan Razavi Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center, AREEO, Mashhad, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Khorasan Razavi Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center, AREEO, Mashhad, Iran
3 Assistant Professor, West Azarbaijan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center, AREEO, Urmia, Iran
Abstract
Social and economical evaluation of watershed management activities, is an important criterion for its validation. The main objective of present study was, identification and analysis of socio-economic impacts of watershed management operations implimented in Gosh village wich is located in 60 km north of Mashhad. The sample data of this study was consisted of 38 extension workers were randomly selected from the study area based on Cochran’s sampling methodology. The research instrument consisted of three parts in Likert scale. The validity of the questionnaire was analyzed and reliability coefficient was calculated for the questionnaire using Cronbach's alpha ratio of 0.745. These amounts showed that questionnaire has an acceptable ability for data gathering. Factor analysis was the major statistical method. The results offactor analysis indicated that socio-economic effective parameters are increasing garden and farm area, increasing qanats water discharge, increasing rangeland area, and preventing lands flood damages. These four factors, in general, had more than 60 percent of the total variance. Final results indicated that watershed management activities have improved qanats water discharge by flood control and aquifer rechrge and increased the area of Agricultural and garden lands. Also, conseving activities in rangelands caused improving of vegetation cover density and the area of rangelands.
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