Given the water governance regime, how potent is the normative practice idea in the case of hydrosystems management? How can the normative practice framework explain the failure of the water governance of the Zayandehrud, and how can this explanation improve water governance both in thsi case and more generally? Can the govervance of the Zayandehrud be understood as a normative practice? If so, how can the distribution of responsibilities, interests and norms, as analysed by the normative practice framework, be seen as a cause of the conflicts that have arisen in the water governance of this river? How are different ways of thinking in the Zayandehrud case (re)shaping the distribution of responsibilities, interests and norms that are causing the conflict within a water-management practice?@en

Since current water governance patterns mandate cooperation and partnership within and between the actors in the hydrosystems, supplementary models are necessary to distinguish the roles and the rules of indoor actions which is why we extend a theory in the frameworks of philosophy of technology. This analysis is empirically grounded on the problematic hydrosystems of a river in central Iran, Zayandehrud. Following a modernist-holistic-based analysis, it illustrates how values in the water apportionment mechanisms are being reshaped. The article by using the theory of normative practice has scrutinised the tasks and the rules of the old and new water-management systems, Mirab. Subsequently according to such philosophical theory, it has argued that the conflicts over the cases are due to interference of structural and directional norms within them.@en