HYDROLOGIC-ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF USE AND VALUE OF IRRIGATION WATER

摘要

Water has always been a contentious issue in arid regions, but has only recently become a source or conflict in humid regions. Water managers can make better allocation decisions among competing uses for water during periods of deficit if they have more complete information about its economic value. A method to select crops and weekly level of irrigation is developed using well-established agricultural management optimization techniques. The contribution of this effort is endogenous incorporation of runoff based on ratios of re-charge area to pond area and pond area to irrigated area. Alternative ratios and climate scenarios generate different on-farm allocation of water among crops and time periods and, thus, different economic values of water. This paper develops a decision support system for water managers that estimates the short-term value of water for irrigation by incorporating explicitly recharge of agricultural pond storage based on runoff under alternative expectations about weather and climate.