Investigating the economic and environmental effects of cropping pattern optimization in agriculture

Water shortages have been intensified in the long run for many reasons, including wrong policies, successive droughts, and improper management and planning, especially in arid and semi-arid regions such as Iran, where the agriculture sector has harvested 86% of renewable water resources. In this situation, optimizing the cropping pattern to minimize water extracted from the aquifer while gaining the maximum profit plays an important role in managing agricultural water resources. The present study investigates the effect of cropping pattern optimization on the sustainability of water resources and agricultural production in West Azerbaijan Province. This research has modeled two hydrological and economic subsystems using Dynamic Approach and statistical data of 1991-2018. After calibration by simple genetic algorithm and verification under extreme condition tests, the impact of scenarios was evaluated. The results showed that cropping pattern optimization reduced water demand by 37%. With a 23% decrease in the volume of water used, the Available surface water will increase by 27.02% and compared to the current cropping pattern, the Available groundwater will increase by 78.53% in 2051. Also, total production will increase by 19.92%, agricultural profit by 26.87%, and value-added of the agricultural sector by 27.11%. For evaluating the sustainability of water resources, it can be said that by optimizing the cropping pattern, the values of the Sustainability Index (SUI) will be positive and close to 1. The Water Exploitation Index (WEI+) values will be very small, indicating a more stable level of groundwater and no water stress by 2051.

Investigating the economic and environmental effects of cropping pattern optimization in agriculture Keywords:

Cropping pattern , Modeling , Optimization , Sustainability , Water resources