Adaptable leadership for arid/semi-arid wetlands conservation under climate change: Using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach.

Adverse socio-economic and environmental impacts of climate change on wetlands have enforced the international community and many nations to develop adaptive policies for wetland management, which require effective leadership to influence relevant stakeholders. This study identifies and prioritizes leadership functions and theories for climate change adaptation (CCA) in wetlands ecosystems, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. A mixed qualitative-quantitative research methodology was applied through focus groups and a survey with a sample of national, sub-national, and local experts on wetlands management and climate change in Iran. The Analytic Hierarchy Processing (AHP) technique identified the political-administrative (weight = 0.245), adaptive (W = 0.244), and enabling (W = 0.237) functions for CCA, respectively, as three prioritized leadership functions, followed by the dissemination function (W = 0.102), which emphasizes the necessity of applying and enhancing leaders' social capacities, knowledge, communication skills, and personal networks to facilitate social learning and actions regarding CCA in local communities and among relevant organizations. It is necessary to overcome structural and functional barriers for leaders and their followers to information access and involvement in participatory decision-making platforms. Moreover, network and communication leadership theories (W = 0.368) and sustainable leadership perspectives (W = 0.362), respectively, have the highest priority among leadership theories and are crucial for establishing participatory decision-making among relevant stakeholders and applying adaptive strategies for wetlands governance under climate change conditions. The reconceptualization of leadership as a complex adaptive notion draws attention to the social complexities and emerging characteristics of leadership in contemporary societies and organizations. The understanding of leaders' and followers' networks and identifying the core role of leaders provides a foundation for developing leadership functions and theories beyond hierarchical, individualistic, and one-way concepts of leadership.

Encouraging adoption of green manure technology to produce clean rice product.

Green manure is used as an environmentally friendly technology to produce clean agricultural products. This technology not only helps reduce environmental and health concerns, but can also increase productivity. Green manure is especially needed in the production of paddy. Because rice as a strategic product is the main food of people in many countries of the world. Rice production using green manure can enable countries to develop and increase healthy production. However, the acceptance of this technology is low in many rice producing countries. In this regard, this study used an integrated and extended version of the theory of planned behavior to predict and encourage the adoption of green manure technology in Iran. To collect the required data, a cross-sectional survey was performed among Iranian rice growers and the results of hypothesis testing were analyzed using partial least squares-based structural equation modeling. The results revealed that moral norms of green manure, attitude towards green manure, perceived behavioral control on using green manure, and trialability of green manure have positive and significant effects on intention towards using green manure. In addition, bootstrap analysis showed that moral norms of green manure and trialability of green manure positively and significantly mediated the (indirect) effects of subjective norms towards application of green manure on intention towards using green manure. The results led to important practical and theoretical implications that could provide new insights for policy-makers, planners, and practitioners to develop and encourage the adoption of green manure technology to produce clean and healthy agricultural products.

Tourism Development During the Pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19): Evidence From Iran.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic has created a great deal of fear and uncertainty about health, economy, and social life. Therefore, the health, social, and economic impacts of COVID-19 are of great importance. In prone rural communities, tourism industry can contribute to the sustainable economy and social development of the villagers, and as a dynamic economic sector, cause economic, social, cultural, and environmental changes. In this regard, the purpose of this inquiry was to develop tourism during the coronavirus pandemic using the social exchange theory (SET). The present study is a descriptive, correlational and causal inquiry that is conducted using survey technique. The statistical population included tourists visiting Sistan region around Hamoun Wetland in eastern Iran (N = 850). In the sampling process, 266 tourists were selected as a sample using random sampling strategy. The study instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire, whose validity was confirmed by a panel of subjectivists and its reliability was approved by a pilot study and Cronbach's alpha coefficients (0.87≥ α ≥ 0.71). Based on SET, the proposed causal model was able to explain about 56% ( RAdj2 = 0.562) of the variance changes in tourism development during the COVID-19 epidemic.