Perspective of Local Households Toward the Social Consequences of Establishing the Behesht Abad Dam in the Origin Basin

Constructing reservoir dams for inter-basin water transfer has been considered as one of main strategies of policy makers for managing water shortage in recent decades. However, this strategy can lead to negative social, economic and environmental consequences. The purpose of this paper is to study the views of local rural and urban households regarding the social effects of constructing the Behesht Abad reservoir dam and the inter-basin water transfer project on the local communities. The research was conducted in Behesht Abad watershed, as the origin basin, located in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province. It aimed at how local rural and urban communities would be affected if a dam was constructed. In this survey, a sample of 200 out of 3514 households was randomly selected, and the data were collected through structured interviews using a questionnaire. From the perspective of the local communities, the dam construction would increase the emigration of local people, leading to marginalization of emigrants in the outskirt of cities; weakening the local households' participation in their communities and increase of job vulnerability, particularly such activities as crop farming, animal husbandry and the related services. Also, land prices in the area would be adversely affected by the dam construction. This perspective was significantly affected by variables such as respondents' age, education level, and households' animal units. This shows that the respondents at higher ages, more children, and more animal units assessed the impact of the dam construction more negatively, while more educated people had more positive attitudes toward this issue.