Attitudes of Villagers in Khorramabad County Toward Consumption of Farming Products Irrigated with Purified Wastewater

Abstract

In water resource planning, due attention should be paid to the sustainable management of water resources and the use of unconventional water in the agricultural sector. The purpose of this applied research is to investigate the factors affecting the attitudes of villagers toward consuming products irrigated with purified wastewater. The statistical population consisted of the villagers who consumed this type of products in Khorramabad County (N = 1601). The sample size determined by Cochran's formula was 200 people. The data were collected with a questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed respectively by the content validity method and Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.751). The data were analyzed by the SPSS software. As the results showed, there was a positive and significant relationship between the attitudes of the villagers and such variables as their awareness of the wastewater purification process and its use in the agricultural sector, the level of trust in the wastewater purification system, the tendency to use the products irrigated with purified wastewater, the level of trust in the healthiness of those products, the villagers’ evaluation of the quality and the smell of the products and the monthly cost of households. All the relationships were significant at the level of 1%.

Keywords

• Water
• Wastewater
• Khorramabad
• Management
• Attitude