مدیریت یکپارچه منابع آب در استان خراسان شمالی؛ به‌کارگیری روش تحلیل شبکه برای یافتن فرصت‌ها و بازدارنده‌ها

IntroductionScarcity of water resources has recently become a global concern. Iran is mainly located in an arid and semi-arid region and has always faced low rainfall and limited water resources. North Khorasan province is also located in the arid and semi-arid region of Iran. Statistics show a decrease in rainfall and depletion of renewable water resources in this province in recent years. As a result, water resource management will be needed to cope with the crisis. Studies have shown that water issues are multi-level, multi-territory, multidisciplinary and multi-factor. Therefore fragmented and sectoral policymaking and decision-making, competing and sometimes conflicting goals are common features of water management in different countries. This will not be responsive to current water management requirements. In response to this challenge, the “integrated water resources management approach” has been raised as a way to engage multiple stakeholders in different functions, different territorial levels and multiple time periods. As a result, identifying the potentials and constraints of a water management structure for launching an integrated water resources management approach will provide the basis of responding to water scarcity. This approach focuses on concepts such as decentralization, financial and economic stability, participation, transparency and local management.Material and methodsThe objective of this paper is to identify the stakeholders involved in water management in North Khorasan province and to measure their cohesion and integration as the potentials, and their conflicts as the constraints of launching integrated water management approach. In order to achieve this objective, the "social (stakeholder) network analysis" method has been adapted and UCINET6 software was used in five steps: one, identifying the stakeholders involved in the management of North Khorasan water resources; two, dividing the provincial official decision-making actors involved in the province's water resources management into three subgroups of development, conservation, and intermediary institutions; three, network data collection using a communication / conflict questionnaire among the stakeholders involved in water management in North Khorasan Province; four, entering the data collected through a questionnaire into UCINET6 software and converting the relationship and the conflict matrix of stakeholders into the final matrix (including zero and one elements); five, calculating the indicators of different levels of the network and drawing the graph of the interactions among the actors involved in the software environment.Results and discussionThe results of this analysis show that the North Khorasan Provincial Government and the Regional-Water Company have the highest in-degree centrality and closeness centrality. This means these two are key stakeholders of the water resource network of the province. The results of the analysis at the middle level of network show that the organizational cohesion/ integration of the network in conservation institutions is higher than the other subgroups, still it is far from optimal level. In contrast the inter-group conflicts in this subgroup and the intermediary subgroup were low. The level of inter-group and out-group conflicts are very high in the developmental subgroup, as they seek to develop their own sectoral goals and policies which are in conflict with the conservation institutions’ ones. In addition, the level of organizational cohesion or integration, the speed of information flow and the level of participation across the entire network of water management stakeholders in North Khorasan province is low.ConclusionBased on the analysis of the network of the stakeholders involved in water management in the North Khorasan Province, it can be said that the sectoral structure of the administration of the country and consequently North Khorasan province results in low integration and coherence among the stakeholders. Also it leads to low participation of all stakeholders due to the lack of appropriate legal and institutional mechanisms. The lack of communication links between the several powerful stakeholders are the most important constraints and the existence of councils and committees such as the Water Resources Conservation Council, and the Drinking Water Safety Committee are among the most important potentials for launching an integrated water resource management approach in North Khorasan Province.