Author(s)

A. A. Kadivar

Abstract

The world has begun the third millennium while the different activities of humans have been affected by water stress and the scarcity of water in the world. This problem will result, in the not very distant future, in water conflicts and war among nations in most regions of the world particularly those in arid and semiarid regions. Iran, a country in the Middle East, in addition to aridity and water stress, has also been involved in problems of water management. In recent years, government interference in water management has caused the people to distance themselves from their principal participatory role in water management. The withdrawal of water users from their responsibility has made the problems more complicated in Iran, particularly in the North Eastern part of Iran. This research has been undertaken using a descriptive and analytical method with documents and field studies on problems resulting from government involvement in water management to find the key solutions from native knowledge to reduce the problems. The result of our investigation shows that, despite the half century government involvement in water resource management without acknowledging the role of creative cooperation of people, there is still an acceptable social investment that could be used in water resource management. The other result of this research is that native knowledge, if used, could now solve the problems that sustainability could be achieved in the management of soil and water resources. Keywords: management of water resources, social investment, native knowledge, North Eastern part of Iran.

Keywords

management of water resources, social investment, native knowledge, North Eastern part of Iran.