Watershed Management Sciences and Engineering Conference in Iran: History and Highlights

Aim of the present study is to describe the history and outcomes of the Iranian Conference on Watershed Management Sciences and Engineering (WMSE) from 1973 to 2019.

The archives of 14 WMSE conferences were first collected. Then, important information was derived and analyzed. 25 questionnaires were also analyzed.

The WMSE conference activities interrupted from late-1970s to early 1990s because of the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian Cultural Revolution and closure of the universities. Then, after 18 years from the 3rd WMSE conference, the Watershed Management Society of Iran (WMSI) decided to continue holding the series of watershed management conferences. According to the analysis of the last 11 conferences, 2794 papers with 5029 authors have been presented. In total, 2635, 2177, and 47 students respectively with PhD, MSc, and BSc students were contributed. In addition, 862 and 238 contributions were respectively made from university and research institute parts. The temporal pattern of number of papers published in the WMSE conference showed a cyclic pattern during 11 conferences which increased one and a half times (i.e., 54%) in seven years from 2008 to 2014, followed by a sharp decline in 2016 (71%; Yasouj City) and 2017 (77%; Malayer City).

Despite a large number of papers presented in the WMSE conferences, knowledge about the watershed governance needs to be improved. It was proved that 48, 32, 16, and 4% of the WMSE contributors respectively anticipated the medium, good, bad, and very bad future for WM state in the country.