THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF WATER SPREADING ON RURAL DEVELOPMENT (A CASE STUDY IN HERAT, YAZD PROVINCE, IRAN (original) (raw)

2013, The 2ndWASWAC World Conference THE THREATS TO LAND AND WATER RESOURCES IN THE 21STCENTURY: PREVENTION, MITIGATION AND RESTORATION

Inappropriate use of soil and water resources may result in a variety of socio-economic problems. These lands are defined as water-short, controlling of this enormous flow, and managing to use beneficially, would change wastelands into verdant sceneries. In spite of crops, range plants and trees irrigated by floods increases production by many folds, the presence of potential aquifers in water-short areas completes the picture. Aquifers which may be recharged by flood water and yield significant quantities of fresh water to wells, Qanats and spring. Considering the extent and depth of course-grained alluvia, astronomical volume of water can be stored in them, as least 500 km3 in Iran. Therefore, flood water has to be controlled and used not only for diminishing damages caused by the floods but also for flood irrigation and store in aquifers for gradual utilization. The floodwater spreading project started in 1990, using the flood water of the Azam River. About 1600 ha of the desert were brought under operation during the 1990 -2010 period. Khoushk, Fath Abad, Ali Abad and Heart villages have received the most benefits from the project. Following necessary information by filling out 69 questionnaires by peasants and governmental official at random, was obtained in the four villages: areas of rain-fed and irrigated land farmed by each household, unit price of agricultural commodities, total expenses of agricultural production, the mean yield of each crop in the study area, number of households in a village, number of livestock owned by a household, annual income and expense of each household, number of wells in a village the mean area irrigated by a single well, number of family members, occupation of the family members, number of migrants. The benefit-cost ratio method was used in finding the economic return of the project. To find out whether the artificial recharge of groundwater caused an increase in the number of wells, 3 villages outside of the influence of the project were selected as controls and the trend in well digging was studied.