Dynamics of Water Allocation: Tradeoffs between Allocator’s and Farmers’ Benefits of Irrigation Practices
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 6
Abstract
Water dependencies and agricultural expansion have led to a remarkable increase in water demand. Proper management of water supply and demand is a crucial challenge in planning for sustainable development. Because the prevailing water allocation system in developing countries is based on low tariffs, particularly in the agricultural sector, a robust accounting cannot be implemented. The objective of this paper is to investigate the economic value of a change from gravity to drip irrigation using groundwater resources. It is implemented in the Rafsanjan plain, in central Iran, where the irrigation practices lead to unsustainable use of groundwater. In this area, the allocator (water authority board) is a governmental agency that can receive funding from other governmental agencies to affect water use policies. Considering the benefits accrued to the allocator and farmers (benefit for all agricultural water uses), the optimal investment in converting gravity irrigation systems to drip irrigation is determined. An economic framework is proposed with two simulation models [Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) and Vensim] to evaluate the dynamics of the water use benefits. According to the results, with expenditures of $65 million/year over a 25-year horizon, the discounted benefit to allocator and farmers in the year 2011 would be $60.48 and $911.9 million, respectively. The framework outlined can provide a mechanism to allocate water in a more precise way as well as to determine the economic value of water in the agricultural sector. The proposed methodology can be applied to other geographic settings.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
All input data used in this research can be found from the publicly available domains of the Iran Ministry of Agriculture; Iran Ministry of Industry, Mining, and Trade; Iran Ministry of Energy; and Iran Statistical Center (2018). Some or all data, models, and code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request, including the codes to run WEAP and Vensim and the codes for the optimization models.
Acknowledgments
This research received no grants or contracts from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sphere.
References
Abdolahi-Ezzatabadi, M., and A. Javanshah. 2007. “Economic investigation of the possibility of using new methods for water supply and demand in agriculture: A case study of pistachio producers in Rafsanjan.” J. Pajouhesh Sazandegi 75: 113–126.
Alizadeh, A. 2002. Estimated net irrigation requirement of Iranian crops and gardens (NETWAT software development). Mashhad, Iran: Ministry of Agriculture and Iranian Meteorological Organization.
Bagheri, A., and F. Babaeian. 2020. “Assessing water security of Rafsanjan Plain, Iran—Adopting the SEEA framework of water accounting.” Ecol. Indic. 111 (Apr): 105959. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105959.
Booker, J. F., R. E. Howitt, A. M. Michelsen, and R. A. Young. 2012. “Economics and the modeling of water resources and policies.” Nat. Resour. Model. 25 (1): 168–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-7445.2011.00105.x.
Caswell, M. F., and D. Zilberman. 1986. “The effects of well depth and land quality on the choice of irrigation technology.” Am. J. Agric. Econ. 68 (4): 798–811. https://doi.org/10.2307/1242126.
de Ocampo, A. L. P., and E. P. Dadios. 2017. “Energy cost optimization in irrigation system of smart farm by using genetic algorithm.” In Proc., 2017IEEE 9th Int. Conf. on Humanoid, Nanotechnology, Information Technology, Communication and Control, Environment and Management (HNICEM), 1–7. New York: IEEE.
Duggan, J. 2018. “pysd2r: API to ‘Python’ Library ‘pysd’.” Accessed July 3, 2019. https://cran.r-project.org/package=pysd2r.
Ebrahimi Sarindizaj, E., and M. Zarghami. 2019. “Sustainability assessment of restoration plans under climate change by using system dynamics: Application on Urmia Lake, Iran.” J. Water Clim. Change 10 (4): 938–952. https://doi.org/10.2166/wcc.2018.209.
Expósito, A., and J. Berbel. 2017. “Why is water pricing ineffective for deficit irrigation schemes? A case study in southern Spain.” Water Resour. Manage. 31 (3): 1047–1059. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1563-8.
Forrester, J. W. 2007. “System dynamics—The next fifty years.” Syst. Dyn. Rev. J. Syst. Dyn. Soc. 23 (2–3): 359–370. https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.381.
George, B., H. Malano, B. Davidson, P. Hellegers, L. Bharati, and S. Massuel. 2011a. “An integrated hydro-economic modelling framework to evaluate water allocation strategies. I: Model development.” Agric. Water Manage. 98 (5): 733–746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2010.12.004.
George, B., H. Malano, B. Davidson, P. Hellegers, L. Bharati, and S. Massuel. 2011b. “An integrated hydro-economic modelling framework to evaluate water allocation strategies. II: Scenario assessment.” Agric. Water Manage. 98 (5): 747–758. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2010.12.005.
Griffin, R. C. 2006. Water resource economics, the analysis of scarcity, policies and projects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Haavisto, R., D. Santos, and A. Perrels. 2018. “Determining payments for watershed services by hydro-economic modelling for optimal water allocation between agricultural and municipal water use.” Water Resour. Econ. 26: 100–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wre.2018.08.003.
Harou, J. J., M. Pulido-Velazquez, D. E. Rosenberg, J. Medellín-Azuara, J. R. Lund, and R. E. Howitt. 2009. “Hydro-economic models: Concepts, design, applications, and future prospects.” J. Hydrol. 375 (3–4): 627–643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.06.037.
Heinz, I., M. Pulido-Velazquez, J. R. Lund, and J. Andreu. 2007. “Hydro-economic modeling in river basin management: Implications and applications for the European water framework directive.” Water Resour. Manage. 21 (7): 1103–1125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-006-9101-8.
Iran Ministry of Agriculture. 2018. “Agricultural annual reports.” Accessed January 10, 2019. https://www.maj.ir/.
Iran Ministry of Energy. 2018. “The master plan of water resources for the KavirDaranjir basin.” Accessed January 10, 2019. http://www.moe.gov.ir/.
Iran Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade. 2018. “Report of water tariffs.” Accessed January 10, 2019. http://www.mimt.gov.ir/.
Iran Statistical Center. 2018. “Statistical yearbook of Kerman Province.” Accessed January 10, 2019. https://www.amar.org.ir/.
Karamouz, M. 2010. Determining the economic value of water in Kerman province based on international standards. Kerman. Iran: Regional Water Authorithy of Kerman.
Karamouz, M., A. Ahmadi, M. S. S. Yazdi, and B. Ahmadi. 2013. “Economic assessment of water resources management strategies.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng. 140 (1): 04013005. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0000654.
Medellín-Azuara, J., J. J. Harou, and R. E. Howitt. 2010. “Estimating economic value of agricultural water under changing conditions and the effects of spatial aggregation.” Sci. Total Environ. 408 (23): 5639–5648. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.08.013.
Mirnezami, S. J., A. Bagheri, and A. Maleki. 2018. “Inaction of society on the drawdown of groundwater resources: A case study of Rafsanjan plain in Iran.” Water Altern. 11 (3): 725–748.
Mirnezami, S. J., C. de Boer, and A. Bagheri. 2019. “Groundwater governance and implementing the conservation policy: The case study of Rafsanjan Plain in Iran.” Environ. Dev. Sustainability 22 (8): 8183–8210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-019-00488-0.
Mohammadi, D. M., and H. Akbari. 2000. “Estimation of potable water demand function in the city of Kerman.” [In Farsi.] Iran Econ. Res. 3 (7): 67–78.
Naval, P. 2015. “MOPSOCD: Multi-objective particle swarm optimization with crowding distance.” Accessed June 25, 2019. https://cran.r-project.org/package=mopsocd.
R Core Team. 2019. “R: A language and environment for statistical computing.” Accessed June 10, 2019. https://www.R-project.org/.
Scrucca, L. 2019. “Genetic algorithms.” Accessed July 8, 2019. https://cran.r-project.org/package=GA.
Smith, M. 1993. CROPWAT: A computer program for irrigation planning and management. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Turner, B. L., M. Wuellner, T. Nichols, R. Gates, L. O. Tedeschi, and B. H. Dunn. 2016. “Development and evaluation of a system dynamics model for investigating agriculturally driven land transformation in the north central United States.” Nat. Resour. Model. 29 (2): 179–228. https://doi.org/10.1111/nrm.12087.
Ventana Systems. 2004. Vensim 5 user’s guide. Harvard, MA: Ventana Systems.
Ward, F. A., and A. Michelsen. 2002. “The economic value of water in agriculture: Concepts and policy applications.” Water Policy 4 (5): 423–446. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1366-7017(02)00039-9.
WHO (World Health Organization). 2018. “Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.” Accessed June 24, 2019. https://www.who.int.
Yates, D., J. Sieber, D. Purkey, and A. Huber-Lee. 2005. “WEAP21—A demand-, priority-, and preference-driven water planning model. Part 1: Model characteristics.” Water Int. 30 (4): 487–500. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060508691893.
Young, R. A., and J. B. Loomis. 2014. Determining the economic value of water: Concepts and methods. New York: Resources For The Future Press.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 6 • June 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 3, 2019
Accepted: Dec 2, 2020
Published online: Mar 30, 2021
Published in print: Jun 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Aug 30, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.