Institutions in water governance are formed in a way to manage the complexities of allocation. At the same time, these institutions may create challenges that require multi-level coordination in different governance sectors to solve them. By studying the series of important events in the process of allocation of underground water resources from the Isfahan-Barkhar study area aquifer, which is known as one of the critical plains of the country in terms of groundwater extraction, this research emphasizes the role of institutions in the exploitation of underground water resources. This research investigates water governance in the implementation stage and its impact on underground harvests. To understand the process of the influence of institutions in the governance of underground water resources, the concept of action position has been used in the framework of management and transfer. Action situations are social units within which actors' interactions produce common outcomes. These action situations establish links in the form of a network through the inputs and outputs of social interactions in the process of water allocation, such as institutions. These links have been analyzed using the social network analysis tool. The data required for the research has been collected by studying national and regional documents, tracking management processes at the operational level, and conducting semi-structured interviews with experts in the water and agriculture sectors of the study area. In this study, the calculation of indicators of coordination, decentralization, actors' participation and governance mode according to the framework of management and transfer have been used to eva‎luate the operational level of the groundwater governance process. According to the obtained results, the decentralization index has been eva‎luated as relatively low, and this means the centrality of national levels in the final approval of water allocation at local levels and the little autonomy of these levels in this decision-making. By observing the results of the social network analysis of action situations, the institutions related to the implementation of national development programs have a high centrality, which indicates their impressive impact on the process of withdrawing from underground water resources and the stable drop of the aquifer level in the study area. This issue, along with the relatively low coordination indicators (vertical and horizontal), indicates the one-sided influence of institutions on the withdrawal of underground water from the top to the bottom decision-making levels. According to the framework used in the current research, the criteria for measuring actors' participation in governance are the institutions that organize actors' behaviors. The results indicate that the low level of this index means little participation of actors in interactions created by institutions. This has caused most of them to be passive in influencing groundwater withdrawals, and only a few key players can be seen with the ability to direct these interactions at different levels. By examining the governance mode index, it has been shown that although network and hierarchical tools have been considered in the water governance structure of the country to improve coordination, at the operational level of the governance process, the hierarchical mode has dominated to implement decisions. To move towards the improvement of water governance, although it is difficult to predict the right path, according to the results of this research, applying procedures for the development of participatory management and improving the level of actors' participation in the production of institutions related to the exploitation of water resources is considered a suitable solution.

آزاده احمدي , علي يوسفي

بنفشه زهرايي , محمدحسين گل محمدي