Redefining Urban Green Space Governance in the Era of Water Scarcity: Exploring Objectives, Stakeholders, and Boundaries of Representation across Several Iranian Metropolises

Introduction:
Under intensifying water scarcity, urban green space can no longer be treated merely as an aesthetic amenity or a quantitative indicator of urban service provision. It is increasingly intertwined with water governance, environmental justice, public health, ecological performance, and urban resilience. In Iranian metropolitan areas, developing and maintaining green spaces through the logic of increasing per-capita provision, physical coverage, and visible projects without simultaneously considering water carrying capacity, water sources, plant suitability, maintenance requirements, quality of use, and stakeholder participation may intensify pressure on scarce resources and reproduce socio-spatial inequalities. Existing research in Iran has generated valuable knowledge on spatial distribution, accessibility, water carrying capacity, green infrastructure, ecosystem services, and social sustainability, but these dimensions have largely been examined separately. Less attention has been paid to who defines green-space objectives, which actors control decision-making authority and resources, what forms of knowledge are recognized as legitimate, which affected groups are represented, and how institutional accountability is organized. The problem addressed in this study therefore extends beyond technical management and concerns governance boundaries, power relations, legitimate knowledge, representation, and decision legitimacy under conditions of water scarcity.
The Purpose of the Research:
The study aimed to redefine urban green space governance in the era of water scarcity by examining the gap between existing and desirable arrangements across Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The five metropolitan areas were considered diverse contexts of a shared governance problem rather than independent case studies. This design made it possible to identify common governance patterns while also recognizing differences in the relative prominence of water, justice, participation, maintenance, data, and institutional coordination issues across cities. The central research question asked how urban green space governance should be redefined in relation to objectives, stakeholders, boundaries of representation, legitimate knowledge, resource control, and institutional accountability. Water governance, stakeholder and collaborative governance perspectives, environmental justice, and Critical Systems Heuristics were used as complementary theoretical foundations, with Critical Systems Heuristics providing the central analytical lens for comparing the existing and desirable situations.
Methodology:
The research was applied and analytical in purpose and qualitative and interpretive in approach. Participants were 18 experts and practitioners with specialized or institutional experience in urban planning, urban green space management, water resources, landscape design, environmental justice, social studies, urban ecology, governance, and green space maintenance. Sampling began purposively and was extended through snowball sampling. Eligibility required relevant professional or research experience and sufficient familiarity with the water, ecological, social, and institutional dimensions of urban green space governance. Interviews were conducted from Farvardin to Khordad 1405 (March–June 2026). Seven interviews were face-to-face and eleven were online; they lasted 45–75 minutes, averaging approximately 58 minutes. Participants were informed about the purpose of the study, confidentiality, and the right to withdraw, and the interviews were recorded and fully transcribed after informed consent. The semi-structured interview guide was developed from the 12 boundary questions of Critical Systems Heuristics, organized around four dimensions: motivation, control, knowledge, and legitimacy. Each issue was explored in terms of both the existing and desirable situations. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis guided by the boundary-question framework, while conceptual codes within each domain were generated inductively from the interviews. Meaning units were linked to relevant boundary questions and classified as existing, desirable, or representing a gap between the two; similar codes were consolidated through constant comparison. Analytical saturation was assessed at the overall inter-city level. From interview 15 onward, no new code or boundary judgment altered the analytical structure, and three additional interviews confirmed saturation. Trustworthiness was strengthened through disciplinary and contextual diversity, constant comparison, comparison with documents and prior research, documentation of the analytical path, and participant review by five interviewees.
Findings and Discussion:
After removing duplication and consolidating overlapping meanings, 40 distinct conceptual codes were retained. Existing governance was characterized by a predominantly quantitative, per-capita, and project-oriented logic in which managerial success was associated with expanding green coverage, increasing project numbers, and producing visible outputs. Indicators such as water consumption, species resilience, maintenance quality, safety and accessibility, distributive justice, satisfaction of different user groups, and ecological effects were less central to evaluation. Water scarcity had not yet been fully internalized as a core logic of green-space decision-making. Responses often remained confined to technical measures such as modern irrigation, wastewater use, or limited changes in plant species, whereas participants emphasized that technical interventions are insufficient without institutional reform. Other major gaps included concentration of decision-making in formal institutions, late or symbolic participation, limited recognition of local and operational knowledge, insufficient data transparency and accountability, and institutional short-termism. Cross-city analysis showed substantial convergence in the direction of governance critique, but different emphases. Tehran displayed a broader combination of institutional, social, water-related, and operational concerns; Mashhad emphasized quality of use, spatial justice, and maintenance; Isfahan highlighted water constraints, data, and monitoring; Shiraz emphasized social acceptance of low-water landscapes and inter-institutional coordination; and Tabriz emphasized environmental justice and ecological connectivity. The boundary analysis clarified these findings across the four dimensions of motivation, control, knowledge, and legitimacy. In the desirable situation, success criteria should move beyond surface expansion toward water efficiency, ecological compatibility, quality, accessibility, equity, and user satisfaction; decision authority should become more distributed and coordinated; local, professional, and scientific knowledge should be combined; and affected groups should gain more meaningful representation and clearer channels of accountability. Integrating thematic findings with boundary judgments produced a framework with five interdependent pillars: adaptation to water scarcity, spatial and social justice, effective stakeholder participation, multi-source knowledge, and institutional accountability. These pillars were interpreted as mutually reinforcing rather than independent components, because changes in water-sensitive objectives require corresponding changes in budgeting, participation, information, and responsibility.
Conclusion:
Redefining urban green space governance under water scarcity requires a transition from technically driven, centralized, and project-oriented management toward multi-stakeholder, justice-oriented, knowledge-based, and accountable governance. Theoretically, the study connects water governance, environmental justice, stakeholder perspectives, and boundary critique, showing that green-space sustainability depends not only on water availability or technology but also on power distribution, recognition of knowledge, representation of affected groups, and decision legitimacy. Practically, the framework calls for water and ecological compatibility assessment before project approval, reform of budgeting and performance evaluation, neighborhood participation from problem definition onward, multi-institutional decision-making, inclusion of local and operational knowledge, performance-based maintenance contracts, and public disclosure of data on water consumption, costs, quality, and project impacts. The cross-city comparison also indicates that a common governance direction can accommodate local priorities rather than imposing a single operational prescription on all metropolitan areas. The proposed framework therefore provides a basis for shifting Iranian metropolitan green-space policy from quantitative expansion toward water-sensitive, equitable, participatory, adaptive, and resilient governance while retaining room for city-specific implementation priorities.