نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
Water scarcity in the Karkheh River Basin and Khuzestan Province has, in recent years, moved beyond a purely environmental and technical issue and has instead become a context for the emergence of social tensions and violence. This study aims to explain the process through which water-related conflicts escalate into social violence and to analyze their consequences in the downstream areas of the Karkheh Basin. Data were collected through 26 semi-structured interviews with farmers, livestock keepers, and representatives of water-related institutions. The interviews continued until theoretical saturation was reached, and the resulting data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The main theme of the study is the “escalation of water-related conflicts into social violence,” which is organized into five sub-themes: “civil resistance and claim-making,” “structural violence and inequality,” “physical violence and human casualties,” “psychological consequences and social disintegration,” and “social and economic impacts.” The findings indicate that water related conflicts are not only a direct outcome of physical water scarcity but also emerge within a context shaped by structural violence, perceived injustice, and weak institutional accountability. Civil resistance represents the threshold between passive acceptance and active conflict, which, in the absence of effective institutional response, escalates into direct violence and social fragmentation. By presenting a conceptual model of the escalation process of water-related conflicts, this study demonstrates that sustainable water crisis management requires moving beyond purely technical approaches and simultaneously addressing the equitable distribution of water between upstream and downstream communities, stakeholder participation, institutional accountability, and the reconstruction of social trust in water governance.
کلیدواژهها English
