Effective Factors on Rural People’s Non-Participation of Mahabad’s Dam Catchment in Watershed Management Projects

The purpose of this descriptive-correlation study was to investigateeffective factors on rural people’s non-participationof mahabad’s dam catchment in watershed managementprojects. the research instrument was structural questionnairewith close-ended questions, which its validity confirmed bypanel of academic staff and reliability of questionnaire wasconfirmed. the target population of this study consisted of allhouseholders who lived in mahabad’s dam catchment (n=2458)out of them, according to cochran's formula 175 people wereselected by using cluster sampling in a simple randomizationmethod (n=175). the descriptive results showed lack of financialability for participating in watershed management, lack ofawareness about watershed management efficiency, the longtermrate of return on the investment attracted in watershedmanagement were the main variables related to rural people’snon participation in watershed management. by applyingfactor analysis explanatory technique, effective factors onrural people’s non-participation in watershed managementwere reduced to five factors namely weakness of agriculturalextension services, getting watershed management out of governmentalcontrol, no achieving success to implement anotherrural projects by government, and no considering local individualsor organization by government. these five factors expressed84% of the total variance of the non-participation people onmahabad’s dam catchment in watershed management projects.therefore points to these factors could solve the barriers ofnon-participation people on mahabad’s dam catchment in watershedmanagement projects.