an investigation of the factors influencing water users' participation in management of the irrigation and drainage networks established on the lands under jiroft dam

the main objective followed in this research was to study some of the factors influencing water users' participation in management of the irrigation and drainage networks on the lands under jiroft dam. the kind of research method of the study was a descriptive- correlational one. the statistical population of the study consisted of all the water users of irrigation and drainage networks active on the lands under jiroft dam in jiroft county (n= 2122). according the cochran's formula, a sample of 180 water users was selected using the stratified random sampling method. a questionnaire was arranged to collect the needed data. the validity of the questionnaire was established by a panel of experts. a pilot study was conducted to establish the reliability of the instrument. cronbach alpha's coefficients for the main scales of the questionnaire were obtained as more than 0.75, which indicates the appropriate reliability of the questionnaire. the descriptive results revealed that, in general, water users' participation in management of the irrigation and drainage networks stood at a low to intermediate range level. based on a regression analysis, 68.7% variances of the dependent variable of water users' participation in management of the irrigation and drainage networks was explained by the five variables of: the level of water users' dependency upon the water of the dam, membership term in the water user cooperatives, water users' literacy level, level of water users' satisfaction with performed irrigation and drainage projects and their levels of experience in agriculrture.