In recent decades, due to the water shortage around the world and the importance of groundwater in agriculture, the role of Water User Associations (WUAs) – well-known farmer associations that manage collective irrigation in agricultural districts – in groundwater management has received much attention. To ensure sustainable groundwater management in these organizations, it is imperative to analyze the effects of the driving mechanisms, such as the “legal and institutional”, “socio-cultural”, “social capital”, “economic”, “infrastructure” and “farmers’ participation” factors, on the collective management of agricultural water. This study proposes a theoretical framework to analyze how and to what extent these factors influence agricultural water management in a case study of WUAs of Tafresh County (Iran), where irrigated agriculture strongly relies on groundwater. To validate this framework, questionnaires with 53 questions/indicators related to these factors have been supplied to 264 associated farmers and then statistically processed using Partial Least Squares – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) methods. The measurement model has confirmed the validity of the questionnaire. The structural model has demonstrated that all the identified factors are significantly effective in driving the WUAs performance. This effectiveness was shown by the high indexes of reliability (over 0.821 against an acceptance limit of 0.7) and convergent validity (over 0.511 against a limit of 0.5). Socio-cultural and social capital factors had a higher impact (confirmed by path coefficients of about 0.80), while the economic factors played a lower effect on groundwater management (path coefficient of 0.534). Moreover, the Pearson matrix showed statistically significant (p < 0.01) and positive (R² = from 0.238 to 0.804) correlations among all the evaluated factors. Based on this framework, some actions for improving the groundwater management at the collective level are suggested, such as: (i) the implementation of new water management technologies to increase the efficiency in extraction, distribution, and consumption of irrigation water; ii) strengthening the importance of social and cultural participation in the management of WUAs, in order to create formal and informal contexts for enhancing individual participation in the short and long-term; iii) designing appropriate financing factors and diversification of the sources of revenue to execute projects on shared water resources.

近几十年来，由于全球水资源短缺以及地下水在农业中的重要性，用水者协会（WUA）——管理农业区集体灌溉的知名农民协会——在地下水管理中的作用受到了广泛关注。 . 为了确保这些组织的可持续地下水管理，必须分析驱动机制的影响，如“法律和制度”、“社会文化”、“社会资本”、“经济”、“基础设施”和“农民参与”因素对农业用水集体管理的影响。本研究提出了一个理论框架，以塔弗雷什县（伊朗）的用水户协会为例，分析这些因素如何以及在多大程度上影响农业用水管理，灌溉农业严重依赖地下水。为了验证该框架，向 264 名相关农民提供了包含 53 个与这些因素相关的问题/指标的问卷，然后使用偏最小二乘 - 结构方程模型 (PLS-SEM) 方法进行统计处理。测量模型验证了问卷的有效性。结构模型表明，所有确定的因素在推动用水户协会绩效方面都非常有效。这种有效性通过高可靠性（超过 0.821 对 0.7 的可接受限度）和收敛效度（超过 0.511 对 0.5 的限度）的高指数显示。社会文化和社会资本因素具有更高的影响（由约 0.80 的路径系数证实），而经济因素对地下水管理的影响较小（路径系数为0.534）。此外，Pearson 矩阵显示出统计学显着性 (p < 0.01) 和阳性 (R² = 从 0.238 到 0.804）所有评估因素之间的相关性。基于此框架，建议采取一些行动来改善集体层面的地下水管理，例如：(i) 实施新的水管理技术，以提高灌溉水的提取、分配和消耗效率；ii) 加强社会和文化参与在用水户协会管理中的重要性，以便为提高个人短期和长期参与创造正式和非正式的环境；iii) 设计适当的融资因素和收入来源的多样化，以执行共享水资源项目。