*3.2.2.3 Socio-economic and policy-institution issues*


*Approaches to Improve Water Productivity and Livelihood Resilience in the Karkheh River… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108720*


### *3.2.2.4 Development of integrated watershed management (IWM) principles*

One of the project's important methodologies and outputs was the development of principles of integrated management of upstream watersheds in arid mountainous areas [15, 16]. The logic and hypothesis were that watershed management principles for tropical and temperate regions were well defined and documented. But mountainous areas with arid climates have their own characteristics in terms of climate, geomorphology, and the effects of water access on local communities' livelihood. Therefore, it is necessary to redefine and adapt these principles for the mentioned areas (such as upstream watersheds in the basins of Iran). The considered criteria and principles were developed under the following categories ([7, 15]): 1) issues and subjects of stakeholders and institutions, 2) issues and subjects of decision-making processes, 3) issues of stakeholder consultation and development of watershed management principles with the help of SWOT analysis, 4) issues of water scarcity and drought, 5) soil issues, 6) soil erosion/soil conservation issues, 7) issues of forest and rangeland ecosystems, 8) issues of areas with irrigated and rain-fed agriculture, 9) land use issues, 10) agronomic and crop selection issues, 11) on issues of participatory technology development, 12) policy matters, 13) livelihood issues, and 14) on gender issues.
