Investigating the Effect of The Construction of Large Reservoir Dams on the Development of Agricultural Activities in Semi-Arid Regions of Iran (Case Study: Salman Fars Dam in Fars Province)

Today the importance of developing agriculture in terms of providing food security as a substructure of rural development is a serious issue for economic planners. This matter largely depends on environmental powers such as soil water resources and consumption efficiency in arid and semi-arid areas. Watershed plans by supplying water and protecting soil play a special role in development of agricultural sector in countries (like Iran) facing water shortage and soil erosion. This research is prepared to study the economic effects of watershed projects in Iran, Fars province where one of the greatest dams, Salman Farsi has been implemented. This research is based on descriptive-analytic method. In this study 584 households are selected from villages with more than 20 households in each village that affected by Salman Farsi project and lives in Qir&karzin County. The study is based on probability sampling, in the step of completing the questionnaire and choosing the space sample; the simple random sample is determined by 95 Kokaran formula with the list of beneficial people and at the end 120 questionnaire are completed (for more accuracy). For analytical statistics SPSS software, non-parametric - binomial tests and Wilcoxon test have been used. In order to truly accounting total revenue of beneficiaries in the base year (1387), their annual income has been converted to the year 2015 on the basis of central bank from inflation rate and then compared. The results show that in the study area the effect of implementation of Salman Farsi dam on economic indicators are positive. It is also found that changes in "area of bagh- galamestan, orbit of water circulation, agricultural products, the number of workers outside the household, the numbers of household labor, the number of small livestock, the number of gardens, and the last the number of proprietary or leased machines in implant, grow and harvest steps" are positive and significant after building the dam.