Critical success factors for collaborative and integrated watershed management (CIWM) of Beyşehir lake

Watershed Management is a multi dimensional, multi institutional, collaborative, integrated and coordinated approach and has sustainable development characters. Therefore, watersheds should be considered at this scope and depth. Collaborative and Integrated Watershed Management (CIWM) is one major alternative that emerged as part of the trends to create more holistic and participatory approaches for natural resource management. The need for a broad spectrum of community experiences in management decisions is increas ingly recognized. This study addresses Beyşehir Lake Basin (BLB), the largest freshwater lake in Turkey, to investigate the critical success factors in CIWM. What is the crucial problem of BLB ? What is the most appropriate watershed management strategy that enables ecological and socio cultural sustainability of the basin ? How important is taking the most advantages of the basin’s Strengths and Opportunities or reinforcing the most Weaknesses and developing the best defense to the Threats ? To answer these questions from the point of experts, this paper offers a systematic approach and analytical methods with a combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and SWOT matrix; and evaluates the most appropriate watershed management strategy, as well as the technical/policy status of the BLB’s management.