Assessing the adaptive capacity of farmers confronting with quantitative and qualitative decline of groundwater (Case study: Qanavat district)

The matter of excessive withdrawal of groundwater resources as a common problem in arid and semi-arid regions of the world has caused depletion in the quantity and quality of groundwater in many plains of Iran, such as Qanavat district in Qom, and the stakeholders of these resources have confronted serious challenges. This research aims to evaluate farmers' adaptive capacity to the quantitative and qualitative decline of groundwater resources. In this regard, first, the content, structure and relative importance of the dimensions of adaptation capacity have been measured using the self-assessment method and psychometric approach. Then, in order to study and compare the adaptation of different villages, the adaptive capacity index has presented and calculated by measuring the relationship between the dimensions of adaptive capacity and individual and technical characteristics of farmers. findings of this research indicate that the most important dimensions influencing adaptive capacity are innovation and risk behavior with highest factor loadings (0.91 and 0.85, respectively), whereas governance and trust in government with lowest factor loadings (0.42 and 0.38, respectively) has not found to be significant dimensions. This finding illustrates the low confidence of farmers in government executive policies on agriculture and groundwater management in this region. Calculating the adaptive capacity index for different villages, it was found that Dolatabad, Momenabad, Seraje and Abdullahabad vllages with more than 0.58 have the highest adaptation in this region. contrarily, due to the multiplicity of smallholders and unwillingness to plant new crops, Valijard and Morad Abad have the lowest adaptation.