Identifying Adaptation Strategies of Farmers towards Climate Change in order to Sustainable Use of Agricultural Water Resources in South Khorasan

Climate change has recently led to diverse impacts around the world, and Iran has also not been spared from these sweeping impacts. Farmers' adaptation to climate change is one of the ways to reduce the impact of this threatening phenomenon. Accordingly, the main aim of present study was to identify the strategies for adaptation of farmers to climate change in South Khorasan province. This study was carried out using mixed explorative mixed methods approach. The sampling process was started with a purposeful sampling approach and continued using snowball method till achieving theoretical saturation. Qualitative data were collected using ground theory approach and other qualitative methods. Qualitative data collection resulted in some components which were applied as base for quantitative phase. The farmers were selected using a multi-stage sampling method with proportional assignment. Then, they were surveyed using a close-ended and researcher-made questionnaire. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS and LISREL software. Based on the results, the adaptation strategies fall into five educational-promotional, managerial, organizational-infrastructural, technical-agricultural, and economic-financial strategies. The results revealed that the organizational-infrastructural strategies ranked first in terms of importance. At the end, the structural model of confirmatory factor analysis and a conceptual model on farmers' adaptation strategies to climate change were articulated.