Identifying and analyzing the behavioral structure of stakeholders involved in sugar beet cultivation and management of water resources in Lake Urmia

Climate change and human activities have intensified droughts, floods, and water quality degradation, placing serious pressure on water resource management. Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris), as a highly water-consuming crop, represents a major challenge for the restoration of Lake Urmia in Iran. Given the large number of actors involved in sugar beet production in Miandoab, this study identifies key stakeholders and analyzes their behavioral structure to support coherent action toward reducing agricultural water use. Using a multi-source dataset—including reports, interviews with key informants, archived documents, previous studies, and field observations—and applying knowledge engineering alongside stakeholder analysis (SA) and social network analysis (SNA), the study followed a four-stage approach: (1) identifying issues, (2) identifying stakeholders, (3) examining their relationships and relative power, and (4) assessing behavioral structures (conditions, mechanisms, and consequences). The methodological innovation lies in integrating SA with SNA to quantify stakeholder interactions and reveal structural roles within the network. Network metrics such as degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and network density identified bridging and influential actors who can facilitate coordination. Based on these findings, effective water-saving interventions should prioritize engaging actors with high centrality scores—particularly the Agricultural Organization, water user associations, and sugar beet cooperatives—in co-developing equitable water allocation rules, enhancing farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange, and implementing incentive schemes for crop diversification. In practice, our findings provide a actionable roadmap for policymakers, identifying key leverage points—such as formally integrating farmers into water governance networks and brokering agreements between agriculture and environmental organizations—to mitigate water-use conflicts. However, the study also highlights that what remains unresolved is the long-term challenge of aligning powerful economic incentives for sugar beet cultivation with the imperative of ecosystem restoration. While the specific findings on stakeholder dynamics are contextual to the Urmia Lake basin, the integrated methodology of Stakeholder Analysis, Social Network Analysis, and knowledge engineering is transferable and can be adopted by researchers and water managers in other regions facing similar challenges of governing water-intensive agriculture in stressed watersheds.