Determining the economic value of agricultural water for developing water management policies: A case study

Increasing the water demands and decreasing water resources, persuade the goverments to improve the water efficiency. There are several methods to make an equilibrium between demand and supply water.One methods is to increas the water price which can persuade consumers to reduce the water demand andimprove the water efficiency. Another method is to buid the new water capasity for decreasing water scarcity. In this paper the first approach is considered and an optimization model for finding the croppattern configuration and water allocation is develped to calculate the economic value of water foragricultural sector. Genetic Algorithm (GA) method is used to solve the optimization model. The results show that the economic value of water in zayandehrood basin is 0.15 $ per cubic meter

Keywords:

Economic value , Irrigation Policies , Genetic Algorithm , Optimal Crop Patten , Zayandehrood basin