Water Crisis: A Social Dilemma

Currently, many countries, including Iran, are facing extremely high levels of water stress and annually more than 80% of the water available to users is supplied from groundwater resources. Water resources are declining fast, and the picture is alarming in many places around the world. Water resources are part of the common heritage and one of the most basic common natural resources of mankind. Common or public resources are resources for which exclusion of users is difficult to achieve and for which joint use reduces the availability of benefits derived from the resource for others, resulting in condition that produces a competition in the use of resources and the degradation or even destruction of resources. In this article, by using the method of documentary research, the effective factors in the development of cooperative behavior for water conservation using social dilemma theory are described and strategies such as education, moral commitment, communication, punishment and reward and social sanctions for sustainable exploitation of this resource are discussed.