On the Analysis of Structural Pattern of Institutional Relations in the Governance of Agricultural Water Resources (Case Study: Rasht County)

Subject Areas : Urban and Regional Planning Studies

H. Afrakhteh ¹ , A. Tahmasebi ² , F. Azizpour ³ , F. askari ⁴

1 - Professor, Geography & Rural Planning, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Assistant Professor, Geography & Rural Planning, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor, Geography & Rural Planning, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
4 - Ph.D. Candidate, Geography & Rural Planning, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2016-12-16 Accepted : 2017-02-21 Published : 2017-08-23

Keywords: social network analysis, Governance, Agricultural Water Resources,

Abstract :

The concept of co-operation and institutional coordination has always been emphasized as one of the key elements in achieving participatory resource management. This study aimed at identifying the structural pattern of institutional relations of 28 organizations associated with the implementation of participatory management of agricultural water resources in Rasht County. For this purpose, the method of social network analysis, with indexes of size, density, centrality of the whole network, the reciprocity measure, the transitivity and the shortest distance between two actors at the macro level were used. The results based on measuring determined indices show that from the number of 756 possible links that could be formed in this network, only 227 cases (about a third) occurred. The network density of information exchange and cooperation among the surveyed organizations was 30%, according to the density and centralization of the measured values, it could be concluded that the institutional coherence among governmental and nongovernmental studied organizations was weak. Accordingly, strengthen the institutional coherence by studying the role of individual actors in the network could be recommended. On the other hand, network connections reciprocity was 23.37% which represented the network centralization and the need to strengthen the reciprocal flow of information and interaction between these organizations.

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