However...

However, individuals are motivated by family and fellow companions or other factors that their self-interests make allowance for the interest of others' too [Schwartz (1966) and Zaman (1992)]. This type of belief may result in restructuring of resource allocations in such a way that social interest becomes possible to be served along with self-interest. In religious societies, such altruistic behavior is common.

In a truly religious society, the amount of contribution for other person's utility may be affected by many factors including the following: a) high degree of faith in afterlife may reduce self-centered consumption making room for sharing with others, b) Religious teachings and temptations for kind and caring attitude can lead to higher level of time and monetary contributions for others. These ideas have been dealt in economics of religion and particularly in Divine Economics.

A step further is to explore whether religiosity or a particular type of religiosity plays any role in management of natural resources, such as water when it is scarce? Because in times of scarcity peoples selfish motives may become more stronger than their altruistic motives.

The objectives of the present paper are 1) To further extend the faith-based analytical framework of natural resource use, 2) To analyze one of the predicted problems before the appearance of Imam Mahdi, that is water scarcity and elaborate the a model of individual behavior in this context, 3) To modify and extend the empirical model for future analysis of interrelationships among religiosity and natural resource use behavior, and 4) To explore how closely the Mahdvi doctrine affects the theoretical basis as well as practical aspects of natural resource use patterns.…