Social barriers to water scarcity adaptation: A grounded theory exploration in arid and semi-arid regions

The agricultural sector is one of the most susceptible sectors to water scarcity. So, the need for the adaptation of its actors to the water scarcity conditions cannot be denied. However, adaptation to water scarcity is faced with various issues such as numerous and serious social barriers, which jeopardize the efficiency and effectiveness of adaptation measures and projects. This research aimed to analyze the social barriers to the implementation of water scarcity adaptation projects in the agricultural sector of Kermanshah province, Iran using Straussian grounded theory. The research population was composed of the key informants of water scarcity adaptation who were sampled with the snowball method. The participants were interviewed, and the transcripts were subjected to qualitative analysis by grounded theory. The result of coding the collected data was the extraction of 348 codes and 64 subcategories. Based on the paradigm model, the core category was identified to be "stakeholders' low understanding and misrecognition" and all other categories made sense with respect to it.