Iran is among the world’s top five groundwater exploiters and, similar to many countries in the world, aquifers in Iran have been rapidly depleted over the past decades primarily as a result of groundwater use by farmers. This research was conducted to explore whether the perceptions of pistachio growers in Rafsanjan Plain, Iran (a global center for pistachio production), on the depleting groundwater resources have led to the conservation of the resources and/or income diversification. In addition, the association between these perceptions and factors representing knowledge of growers was examined. To this end, two path models were developed and tested using path analysis and logistic regression. The results indicate that growers who had more pessimistic perceptions of the groundwater resources in Rafsanjan were more likely to increase groundwater extraction; however, these growers were also more likely to seek external employment (income diversification). The final path models suggest attitudes toward groundwater conservation were the most important determinants of pumping behavior, while perceptions of the state of the groundwater were the most important determinants of income diversification. Whether Iranian policies to increase awareness of falling water tables could succeed in securing water conservation would depend on the ‘balance’ of these two forces—an increase in pumping with increased pessimism or a potential decrease in pumping through income diversification. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of the results for interventions aimed at changing not only the groundwater users’ decisions about groundwater use, but also their decisions about income diversification.

伊朗是世界上五大地下水开采国之一，与世界许多国家一样，伊朗的含水层在过去几十年中被迅速消耗掉，这主要是由于农民使用了地下水。进行这项研究的目的是探究伊朗Rafsanjan平原（全球开心果生产中心）开​​心果种植者对地下水资源枯竭的看法是否导致了资源节约和/或收入多样化。此外，还考察了这些看法与代表种植者知识的因素之间的关联。为此，使用路径分析和逻辑回归开发并测试了两个路径模型。结果表明，对拉夫桑詹的地下水资源抱有更悲观认识的种植者更有可能增加地下水的开采。但是，这些种植者也更有可能寻求外部就业（收入多样化）。最终路径模型表明，对地下水保护的态度是抽水行为的最重要决定因素，而对地下水状态的感知是收入多样化的最重要决定因素。伊朗提高对地下水位下降认识的政策能否成功地实现节水将取决于这两种力量的“平衡”，即增加的悲观情绪增加抽水量，或通过收入多样化而可能减少抽水量。