pted 2012-11-19
ABSTRACT
Recent studies in many countries had display the influence of many factors including: Satisfaction,
Knowledge, Demographic and Attitudinal variables in level of people participation. The main question here is,
whether these factors would also be effective on people participation in Iran? The purpose of this research was
to investigate communication factors influencing attitudes of farmers’ application of Watershed Management
Operations (WMO) in the Kushk-Abad watershed in Khorassan Razavi Province of Iran (85 km2
). The general
objective of this study is to assess factors that influence people’s participation in Iran. The study consist of all
farmers in watershed study (N = 1500), of which 200 is selected through proportionate stratified random
sampling technique (n = 200). The study was a descriptive-co relational, survey research. In fact, this research
was designed to assess relationship between attitude toward Watershed Management Operations (WMO) and
the level of participation in WMO in Iran. In order to obtain this aim, a cross sectional survey was applied.
Data for this research collected through personal interviews from three villages in Kushk-Abad sub basin in
Iran. The scale of attitude toward WMO and Participation in WMO were in order 0.71 and 0.92. Findings in
the study indicated that a majority of the farmers have positive attitude toward adaption of WMO. The results
revealed that the level of the participation of WMO is moderate and there is a significant and positive
correlation between farmers’ attitudes towards application of watershed management operations. However
based on the findings, the level of economical participation of people are the more than social and
environmental participation. Moreover, the results indicated that the level of the respondents’ attitude towards
WMO is moderate to low. This study also proved that participation in WMO is positively and significantly
correlated with attitude toward WMO (r = 0.534, p = 0.000).