Social network analysis of local water user associations' actors: evidence from Iran

The purpose of this study was to investigate social network analysis (SNA) indicators of actors among exploiters, members of local water user associations (WUA), and their boards of directors in Ilam Province, Iran. The network analysis method and Ucinet6 software were used to examine the information exchange network and the network of participation among the members of the WUAs across the province. The actors of the local WUAs in the study area included the Water Supply Organization, the Agri-Bank, the Agricultural and Natural Resources Management Organization, the Agriculture Organization, the Department of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, the Provincial Government, the Village Council and Rural Municipalities, the Agricultural Insurance Fund, and the Regional Water Company of the province. Among the experts, one was selected from each organization or administration via the purposeful sampling method. A questionnaire containing 20 items with a Likert-type scale was designed for data collection, and the actors active in the field of local WUAs were asked to determine the information exchange rate and the participation of their organization/administration with other organizations/administrations. In addition, the relationship between the active actors and local WUAs was examined from the perspective of the actors in the province. The results of the analysis of the density index at the whole level of the information exchange network and the participation network showed that the density of the links to exchange information and participate in the network of actors was low across the provincial WUAs. In total, according to network density indicators, network size, centrality (concentration) of the entire network, and the social cohesion of the information exchange network and the network of participation were ranked to be weak to moderate.