Integrating rationality and morality: A TPB-NAT framework for explaining farmers' water governance behavior

Active participation of farmers in water governance is crucial for sustainable management and water security. However, most studies focus on technical, economic, or individual factors, overlooking the simultaneous but conceptually distinct influence of rational decision-making, moral obligation, and institutional context. Despite widespread TPB–NAT applications in environmental behavior research, their role in collective water governance remains underexplored. Addressing these gaps, this study employs an additively integrated TPB–NAT framework to examine the drivers of farmers’ participatory behavior in water governance in the Lake Urmia basin, incorporating rational motivations, moral considerations, and institutional trust as parallel explanatory mechanisms. Using a questionnaire survey, data were collected from 372 farmers and analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results indicate that, from an individual logic perspective, behavioral intention (BI) positively and significantly influences participatory behavior (PB), while attitude (At), perceived behavioral control (PBC), and subjective norms (SN) significantly predict BI. From a social–moral perspective, awareness of consequences (AC) and ascription of responsibility (AR) significantly shape farmers’ moral norms (MN), which in turn influence BI. Institutional trust (IT), along with rational and moral determinants, independently reveal the complementarity among the various drivers of farmers’ behavioral intentions. By empirically comparing the relative and additive contributions of rational, moral, and institutional factors within a governance-dominated context, this study advances understanding of farmers’ participation in water governance and offers practical insights for designing targeted interventions to enhance engagement in sustainable water management.