Assessing Policies of Irrigation for Groundwater by Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) Case Study: Eghlid

In recent decades, due to water crisis, most countries have been more interested in new policies for managing water demand instead of regulating the water supply. In dry and semi-dry areas of Iran such as Fars province, water scarcity is not only the important factor that impedes economic development but also special input in production. Drought in year 2007 could be considered as a risk of crisis in water supply. So, the purpose of this study is managing water demand through economizing surface water and groundwater resources which is of special importance in the region. It is self-evident that agricultural economy has a close relationship with water management. In this research the standard Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) method is used to calibrate the agricultural sector model. A two-stage stratified random sampling through personal interviews of Bakan from Eghlid farmers has been applied, where abundant water resources and groundwater exist. By selecting a real sample of farms, model calculation for both areas is carried out. Two scenarios are identified. In the first scenario, by using PMP model for each group from water resources are calculated separately. They differ in terms of net revenue which is because of overly cost of construction and operation of wells between the two groups of surface water and groundwater. Results show that 10% decrease in water supply or doubling the prices will not change the optimal crop pattern in comparison to the base pattern. The results of model calculation shows that through running new irrigation methods (intensive irrigation) and also by effective pricing policies, investment can be encouraged in the water sector and in the area and therefore, through optimum management of water demand the water resources can be saved and any form of waste avoided.