leili abolhasani

Farmers are under increasing pressure to use fewer pesticides for production and pest control. Farmers and other producers are responding to consumer concerns about pesticides by creating new marketing opportunities for products grown with environmentally friendly practices. The purpose of this study is to estimate consumers' willingness to pay for each of the information provided in the "Protective Agriculture Label" and determine the factors affecting consumers' willingness to pay. The two conservation agriculture labels designed in this study are the "How to Cultivate" label and the "Environmental Damage" label. The cultivation method label provides information about the raw materials used to produce the product, while the environmental damage label provides information about the environmental harm caused during the production process. The purpose of this study is to estimate consumers' willingness to pay for each type of information provided on the conservation agriculture labels and to determine the factors affecting consumers' willingness to pay.

 In this study, in order to analyze consumers' preferences for protective agricultural products in Mashhad, the choice experiment method was used, and conditional logit models and logit with random parameters were used to estimate its parameters. Choice experiment is a common tool for valuing environmental functions and services. The required information was obtained by completing 170 questionnaires from the consumers of Mashhad city. The analysis of collected data is done using many models, most of which have a logit form. In this study, conditional logit and logit models with random parameters have been used to investigate the effect of the characteristics of agricultural product labels on consumers' willingness to pay and to estimate the amount of willingness to pay for each of the characteristics. 

In this article, consumer preferences for protective agricultural products have been analyzed using the choice test method. For data analysis, conditional logit and logit with random parameters model were used. The results obtained from this study have shown that the characteristic accuracy of the measurement method was the highest and the label-issuing organization had the lowest willingness to pay. The variables of gender, the presence of a child in the family, and the presence of people with a specific disease in the family had a positive and significant effect, and the variable of age had a negative and significant effect on the willingness of consumers to pay. In both labels, the sign of the price variable is negative, which is in accordance with the theory of economic utility. The comparison of the calculated final effect for two labels of environment and method of cultivation has shown that, in general, the probability of choosing the label of method of cultivation is higher than the probability of choosing the label of environmental-biological damages.  In 53% of the cases, the selected option was the label of how to cultivate, and in 15% of the cases, none of the labels were selected. The amount of willingness of consumers to pay to obtain information about the way of cultivation and damage to the environment is very low. Even consumers willing to pay to obtain detailed information on production (such as the degree of water pollution with which the product was irrigated, the level of soil pollution in which the product was grown, and the type of poisons used) and environmental damage (such as contamination of groundwater with The reason for product production is not air pollution due to product production and global warming (increasing temperature due to product production). In this regard, more research is suggested in the field of reasons for the low willingness to pay of consumers.

Examining the willingness to pay of consumers has shown that people are willing to pay more for the accuracy of the measurement method than for the label-issuing organization. The amount of consumers' willingness to pay for the characteristics of the organization issuing the label and the accuracy of the measurement method were obtained as 5 and 17.04 Tomans, respectively, so it can be concluded that Accuracy is more important than an organization for consumers.

In recent years, water resources management has faced many challenges due to poor water governance and management, increasing demand, industrial and agricultural development, and unbalanced water allocations for various uses (Global Water Partnership, 2006). Sustainable development provides solutions for development in order to solve economic, social and environmental problems. The study of the relationship between economic, social and environmental processes in management approaches has been accepted as a sustainable development, but managers and decision makers still have difficulty in applying and evaluating this relationship. In order to evaluate a system, a set of indicators is needed that can be used to examine a system in different aspects, reflecting current or future issues. The World Water Assessment Program (WWAP) (2003) reports on the importance of indicators in streamlining information about integrated water resources management and the establishment of effective communication between different departments in water management. So far, several studies have been conducted in the country on the evaluation of the results of plans for management of water resources and consumptions (Arshadi & Bagheri, 2014; Karamouz & Mohammadpour, 2017). In these studies, most of the researchers have not had a basin view, and have not been consistent with all the components of sustainability, especially the environmental and institutional components. The present study was carried out by reviewing previous studies with some concepts, with the aim of identifying important indicators in water management assessment, assessing the performance of indicators related to water management against a set of sustainability components, and finally extracting and introducing indexes appropriate to dry and semi- dry conditions.

Adopting a social learning framework, this study aims to assess the water institution (both formal and informal) in the Tashk-Bakhtegan basin. The social learning loops, orientation and direction features were adopted to assess the formal institution. To assess the informal institution, the drought of 2008 was considered as the change affected the system. The responses of informal water institution to that change were then assessed. For formal institutions, the results showed that the water laws in the local level have put pressure on the local water resources. This structure relies on the national authorities and has low level of learning capacity. In the informal sector, the components of social learning process were generally found low in the upstream, but at much better levels in the downstream. The assessment of social learning outputs components showed that the downstream sub-regions were at a higher level of social learning capacity comparing with the upstream (double and triple loops of learning are active), and the responses were oriented towards better conservation of water resources. Furthermore, the width of those responses went beyond individual levels to collective and participating levels. For the water institution of the Tashk-Bakhtegan basin, this paper suggests that implied mechanisms of water laws needs to be modified, national and centralized governance requires to be transformed to participatory and cooperative structures, private and public institutions need to be initiated, and finally the components of social learning process, that were found at a low level, require to be improved.

In this study to evaluate of Economic Value of Functions and Services in Naharkhoran Park use the choice experiment method and to estimate their parameters the conditional logit model and random parameters logit model have been used. Information required were collected by 339 completing questionnaires and interviewing from Naharkhoran Park’s tourists. The results showed that the most important attribute in the view of tourists is contributing to forest sustainability. The tourists’s willing to pay for attributes to forest sustainability, environmental health of the river, tourism facilities and reducing noise pollution respectively is 3567, 2219, 1145 and 2311 Rials per visit. Also age and native variables due to increase tourists’s willing to pay.

To tackle the shortage of water resources, several water projects were financed by Agriculture [Jihad-e Keshavarzi] organization in Khorasan Razavi, among which water transport projects are of the most important ones. However, despite their significance, no studies were conducted about the factors contributing the effectiveness of water transport projects. Therefore, this study introduced a new conceptual model, consistent with different types of projects and local conditions, and estimated via structural equations model. Required data was gathered from experts as well as farmers who had applied the projects. The study results indicated that effectiveness of the projects was related to the apropos choice of time and location of implementation rather than to the operational outcomes or quality of construction. In the light of this fact, more meticulous studies at project implementation phase for each project was proposed.

It is presumed that changes in energy prices directly affect water consumption, especially if abstracted from groundwater resources, because of the vital role energy plays in the different stages of water abstraction and treatment. The present study was, thus, designed and implemented to examine the effects of different energy pricing scenarios on water consumption. The estimated values were obtained according to the dynamic general equilibrium model using 2011 as the base year and different scenarios likely to realize over the following ten years. Results indicate that water price will increase by 4.42% in the base year if a 100% increase occurs in the prices of all the energy carriers, with the contributions of oil products, power, and natural gas to the increased water price being 72.18%, 17.7%, and 10.12%, respectively. Clearly, oil products have the greatest impact on water prices and reductions in water demand in most economic activities. Moreover, a decline, albeit with a certain fluctuation, is observed in water consumption percentages with all the scenarios examined and the values of the variables are predicted to return to their non-shock status so that the shock effects gradually disappear. At lower energy price rates, the reactions to increasing energy prices realized in the form of increased water price and declining water consumption exhibit an exponentially declining trend. It may be concluded that changes in energy prices under the present conditions do not generally lead to any substantial changes in water demands. This may be attributed to the currently rather low energy prices. In the farming and horticulture subsectors, however, reduction in water demand is notable.