بیژن ابدی

The literature is full of the inquiries that have established the association of ecological awareness with conservation behavior, but witness on the layers of awareness of the environmental institutions in agriculture, i.e., environmental NGOs is lacking. Therefore, this contribution quantitatively examines the association of farmers’ awareness of environmental NGOs with water conservation behavior (WCB) using the non-experimental data. The research population includes all farmers of Mianduab city in the South Basin of Lake Urmia (N ≈ 23750), of which a sample composed of 368 farmers responded the survey. Miandoab city includes three districts (Baroogh, Marhamatabad and Central Miandoab), 11 villages (Zarrinehrud, Southern Zarrinehrud, Northern Zarrinehrud, Marhamatabad, North Mokrian, Southern Marhamatabad, Eastern Ajorloo, Western Ajorloo, Baroogh, Northern Marhamatabad, and Middle Marhamatabad) and 120 rural areas. The questionnaire was approved by a group of specialists in the field of agricultural extension and education. After conducting a pilot study, the reliability of the index of WCB was assessed using the Cronbach’ alpha. To determine whether the awareness of environmental NGOs is coupled with the WCB, we conducted chi-square (χ2) with the metrics, e.g., Ф and Cramers’ V. The resulting from Contingency Table Analysis (CTA) indicates that farmers’ awareness of the ontology, task scope, roles, and officials of the environmental NGOs are correlated to WCB. In conclusion, it is recommended that the NGOs’ officials need to regard farmers’ awareness of such institutions, which possibly creates the opportunities by which farmers can voluntarily participate in solving the water crisis and revivification of Lake Urmia.