Investigating and prioritizing factors affecting the non-participation of rural societies in watershed management projects (Case study: Asadli watershed, North Khorasan Provience)

Effective and less expensive implementation of plans, protection of projects, and future restoration of structures require the participation of stakeholders in all stages of study, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and maintenance. Therefore, identifying and classifying indicators and sub-indices that affect people's participation and promoting them in the implementation of watershed and aquifer projects is very important. To this end, the objective of this research is to comparative evaluation of factors affecting people's non-participation from the point of view of watershed residents and also experts in the Asadli Watershed, Bojnord. In this research, factors affecting people's non-participation in watershed projects were classified in the form of four economic, social, education-extension, and design-implementation indicators and 15 sub-indices. In the following, from the point of view of experts (19 people) and stakeholders (31 people), the indicators and sub-indices affecting people's non-participation in watershed management projects were prioritized using the Fuzzy Hierarchical Analysis Process (FHAP) and the Friedman Test. The reliability measurement of the questionnaire was determined via Cronbach's alpha test. The obtained Cronbach's alpha value (= α 0.752) showed that the measuring tool (questionnaire) has good reliability. The results showed that from the point of view of experts and stakeholders, economic indicators and design-implementation have a greater role in people's non-participation than other indicators in the region under investigation. Experts and local societies were of the same opinion regarding the factors affecting non-participation in watershed projects in some cases, including in the field of "tribe and local people differences", "impossibility of issuing exploitation rights", "lack of indigenous knowledge of local people in the field of watershed management", and ”late return of watershed projects". A noteworthy point is the relative importance of the sub-index "lack of attention to local forces in the implementation of the project" from the point of view of both groups (rank 4 and 5 according to local societies and experts, respectively). The ranking results of the sub-indices from the perspective of experts and rural societies showed that the "lack of specific laws to support people's participation in watershed management projects" is the most important and also the sub-index "concentration of decision-making power in the center" is of great importance. However, the biggest difference in the importance of the factors from the perspective of two groups of experts and local communities is related to the sub-indices of "ignoring people's interests as a direct economic incentive" and” lack of consultation with local societies in project needs assessment".