Development of an Agent-Based Model to simulate the behavior of agricultural users in water and land management

Since there are various social factors and differences between different sectors of the system, ignoring water users’ attributes and their social behavior as well as considering only the homogeneous and up-down management scheme, would not be a successful approach in sustainable water management. Agent-Based Modeling is a relatively new approach that provides helpful tools to simulate social behaviors in sustainable water management. In this study, the agriculture sector’s water use is simulated using a conceptual framework and an Agent-Based Model to study the behavior of the decision-making agents. Therefore, to prepare the conceptual model and to simulate and analyze the social behavior of water users (in three decision levels of the Government, local organizations, and farmers) to decide on the cropping pattern, the irrigation method, and consequently the water withdrawal volume, the MAIA framework has been applied. In this regard, the Agent-Based Model for a pilot study area (the Hablehroud River basin, Iran) was coded, verified, calibrated, and validated. This model had a good performance in simulating the basin’s conditions, including cropping patterns and areas, and therefore the stream flow and groundwater use. Furthermore, to assess the impacts of the government’s water conservation policies on the hydrologic conditions, different scenarios of taking and increasing water costs were defined and modeled (one to ten thousand IRR per cm of water use led to a decrease in the total water withdrawals in the range of 8-32 million cubic meters per year).