IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jresou/v8y2019i2p109-d238986.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Determines Behaviours Towards Water Resources Management in a Rural Context? Results of a Quantitative Study

Author

Listed:
  • Murat Okumah

    (Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)

  • Ata Senior Yeboah

    (Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana)

  • Elias Nkiaka

    (Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)

  • Richard Apatewen Azerigyik

    (Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana)

Abstract

Recent environmental policies introduced to safeguard the quality of water resources have focussed on encouraging pro-environmental behaviours (PEB). This has resulted in a considerable volume of research output that seeks to investigate the determinants of PEB in the context of water resources management. However, there is a paucity of literature exploring the topic within the developing country context, though evidence suggests that these regions record the highest rates of water resource pollution. This limits our understanding of the determinants of PEB and thus constrains our ability to develop and implement effective policies to encourage uptake of PEB. Following this, we apply the Theory of Planned Behaviour to explore the determinants of PEB, using structural equation modelling to analyse survey data from rural Ghana. The evidence supports the hypothesis that attitudes and perceived behavioural control affects intentions, and this translates into pro-environmental behaviour. Results further indicate that attitude and perceived behavioural control have a strong explanatory power in people’s intentions, and intentions are influential drivers of pro-environmental behaviour. An explicit recognition of the role of situational factors could offer a profound understanding of the determinants of behaviours that promote water resources management and support the development and implementation of policies aimed at safeguarding the quality of water resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Murat Okumah & Ata Senior Yeboah & Elias Nkiaka & Richard Apatewen Azerigyik, 2019. "What Determines Behaviours Towards Water Resources Management in a Rural Context? Results of a Quantitative Study," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:8:y:2019:i:2:p:109-:d:238986
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/8/2/109/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/8/2/109/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee Cronbach, 1951. "Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 16(3), pages 297-334, September.
    2. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    3. Daxini, Amar & O'Donoghue, Cathal & Ryan, Mary & Barnes, Andrew & Buckley, Cathal & Daly, Karen, 2018. "Which factors influence farmers’ intentions to adopt nutrient management planning?," 92nd Annual Conference, April 16-18, 2018, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 273498, Agricultural Economics Society.
    4. Daxini, Amar & Ryan, Mary & O’Donoghue, Cathal & Barnes, Andrew P., 2019. "Understanding farmers’ intentions to follow a nutrient management plan using the theory of planned behaviour," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 428-437.
    5. Barnes, A.P. & Willock, J. & Hall, C. & Toma, L., 2009. "Farmer perspectives and practices regarding water pollution control programmes in Scotland," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(12), pages 1715-1722, December.
    6. Lori M. Hunter & Alison Hatch & Aaron Johnson, 2004. "Cross‐National Gender Variation in Environmental Behaviors," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(3), pages 677-694, September.
    7. Daxini, Amar & O'Donoghue, Cathal & Ryan, Mary & Barnes, Andrew & Buckley, Cathal & Daly, Karen, 2018. "Which factors influence farmers’ intentions to adopt nutrient management planning?," 92nd Annual Conference, April 16-18, 2018, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 273494, Agricultural Economics Society.
    8. Inman, Alex & Winter, Michael & Wheeler, Rebecca & Vrain, Emilie & Lovett, Andrew & Collins, Adrian & Jones, Iwan & Johnes, Penny & Cleasby, Will, 2018. "An exploration of individual, social and material factors influencing water pollution mitigation behaviours within the farming community," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 16-26.
    9. Ayer, Harry W., 1997. "Grass Roots Collective Action: Agricultural Opportunities," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 1-11, July.
    10. Okumah, Murat & Martin-Ortega, Julia & Novo, Paula, 2018. "Effects of awareness on farmers’ compliance with diffuse pollution mitigation measures: A conditional process modelling," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 36-45.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nadia Palmieri & Flavio Boccia & Daniela Covino, 2024. "Digital and Green Behaviour: An Exploratory Study on Italian Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-19, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Okumah, Murat & Martin-Ortega, Julia & Chapman, Pippa J. & Novo, Paula & Cassidy, Rachel & Lyon, Christopher & Higgins, Alex & Doody, Donnacha, 2021. "The role of experiential learning in the adoption of best land management practices," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    2. Daxini, Amar & O’Donoghue, Cathal & Ryan, Mary & Buckley, Cathal & Barnes, Andrew P., 2018. "Factors influencing farmers' intentions to adopt nutrient management planning: accounting for heterogeneity," 166th Seminar, August 30-31, 2018, Galway, West of Ireland 276183, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Murat Okumah & Julia Martin-Ortega & Paula Novo & Pippa J. Chapman, 2020. "Revisiting the Determinants of Pro-Environmental Behaviour to Inform Land Management Policy: A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Model Application," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-33, April.
    4. Li, Fuduo & Zhang, Kangjie & Ren, Jing & Yin, Changbin & Zhang, Yang & Nie, Jun, 2021. "Driving mechanism for farmers to adopt improved agricultural systems in China: The case of rice-green manure crops rotation system," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    5. Daxini, Amar & Ryan, Mary & O’Donoghue, Cathal & Barnes, Andrew P., 2019. "Understanding farmers’ intentions to follow a nutrient management plan using the theory of planned behaviour," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 428-437.
    6. Bourceret, Amélie & Amblard, Laurence & Mathias, Jean-Denis, 2023. "How do farmers’ environmental preferences influence the efficiency of information instruments for water quality management? Evidence from a social-ecological agent-based model," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 478(C).
    7. Daniel K. Maduku & Steven Mbeya, 2024. "Understanding family takaful purchase behaviour: the roles of religious obligation and gender," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(2), pages 440-458, June.
    8. Yang, Xin & Zhou, Xiaohe & Deng, Xiangzheng, 2022. "Modeling farmers’ adoption of low-carbon agricultural technology in Jianghan Plain, China: An examination of the theory of planned behavior," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    9. Suriansyah & Nurliza & Eva Dolorosa & Rosyadi & Denah Suswati, 2024. "Intention to Transition: Natural Rubber Smallholders Navigating the Risks of Farming," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-16, February.
    10. Dimitrios Iakovidis & Yiorgos Gadanakis & Julian Park, 2023. "Farmer and Adviser Perspectives on Business Planning and Control in Mediterranean Agriculture: Evidence from Argolida, Greece," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-20, February.
    11. Minglong Zhang & Yanfang Huang & Yunzheng Zhang & Fengying Nie & Xiangping Jia, 2024. "Farmers’ Adoption of Agricultural Nature-Based Solutions in Northeast China: An Extended Theory of Planned Behavior Approach," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-20, September.
    12. Javier Martínez-Dalmau & Julio Berbel & Rafaela Ordóñez-Fernández, 2021. "Nitrogen Fertilization. A Review of the Risks Associated with the Inefficiency of Its Use and Policy Responses," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, May.
    13. Mahfuza Begum & Muhammad Mehedi Masud & Lubna Alam & Mazlin Bin Mokhtar & Ahmad Aldrie Amir, 2022. "The Adaptation Behaviour of Marine Fishermen towards Climate Change and Food Security: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Health Belief Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-24, October.
    14. Coyne, L & Kendall, H & Hansda, R & Reed, M.S. & Williams, D.J.L., 2021. "Identifying economic and societal drivers of engagement in agri-environmental schemes for English dairy producers," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Bao, Haijun & Xu, Yueling & Zhang, Wenyu & Zhang, Shuai, 2020. "Has the monetary resettlement compensation policy hindered the two-way flow of resources between urban and rural areas?," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    16. Nettle, R. & Morton, J.M. & McDonald, N. & Suryana, M. & Birch, D. & Nyengo, K. & Mbuli, M. & Ayre, M. & King, B. & Paschen, J.-A. & Reichelt, N., 2021. "Factors associated with farmers’ use of fee-for-service advisors in a privatized agricultural extension system," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    17. Ding, David Xin & Hu, Paul Jen-Hwa & Sheng, Olivia R. Liu, 2011. "e-SELFQUAL: A scale for measuring online self-service quality," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 508-515, May.
    18. Mei-Fang Chen & Ching-Ti Pan & Ming-Chuan Pan, 2009. "The Joint Moderating Impact of Moral Intensity and Moral Judgment on Consumer’s Use Intention of Pirated Software," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 361-373, December.
    19. Kim, Seheon & Rasouli, Soora, 2022. "The influence of latent lifestyle on acceptance of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS): A hierarchical latent variable and latent class approach," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 304-319.
    20. Joanie Roussel-Ouellet & Dominique Beaulieu & Lydi-Anne Vézina-Im & Stéphane Turcotte & Valérie Labbé & Danielle Bouchard, 2022. "Psychosocial Correlates of Recreational Screen Time among Adolescents," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-15, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:8:y:2019:i:2:p:109-:d:238986. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.