Multicriteria Analysis in an Irrigation District in Mexico
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 131, Issue 6
Abstract
The Alto Rio Lerma Irrigation District, located in the state of Guanajuato in Mexico, is an agricultural area whose sustainability depends partially upon groundwater withdrawal for crop irrigation. Because of high pumping demands and current land-management practices, groundwater levels have declined severely, resulting in aquifer overdraft. In order to analyze economic, environmental, and water use problems in this region, 12 potential cropping patterns were generated for different groundwater withdrawals using linear programming. Then, simulation of the agricultural system was performed using GLEAMS to estimate the amounts of water, nitrate, and pesticides in both runoff and percolation for each cropping pattern. Pumping costs and an aquifer exploitation coefficient account for the economic and environmental impacts of aquifer overdraft. Finally, the Range of Value Method (multicriteria method) was applied to rank and identify the best cropping pattern. The results show the best alternative for effectively balancing environmental with economic considerations was the farming practice, consisting of land leveling, growing vegetables such as red tomato, and controlled groundwater withdrawals to preserve aquifer sustainability.
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Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 131 • Issue 6 • December 2005
Pages: 514 - 524
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 4, 2001
Accepted: Jun 21, 2004
Published online: Dec 1, 2005
Published in print: Dec 2005
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