AN INTEGRATED HYDRO-ECONOMIC MODELING TO EVALUATE MARKETING REFORM POLICIES OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

Hadi Rafiei Darani, Mohammadreza Kohansal, Mohammad Ghorbani, Mahmoud Saboohi

Abstract: Water scarcity is a global concern, particularly in arid and semi-arid. This fact should be considered in decision making and management of water resources and also policy makers should pay attention to the effects of these policies as a crucial criterion. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of different policies of agricultural products marketing network reform on water resources management, especially on the use of groundwater in the Neyshabur basin in Iran. Thus, taking into account the effects of marketing on the supply and demand water, we used hydro-economic (H-E) model. In the economic sector of the H-E model, Regional Positive Mathematical Programming (RPMP) was used to study the effects of various scenarios (marketing network reform policies) on crop patterns. In the hydrologic sector of the H-E model, WEAP was used to analyze and simulate of water resources according to the different crop patterns (results obtained from economic sector).
The results showed the network marketing reform leads to change in cropping pattern. The cultivated area of crops with high marketing margin was increased. Also, the cultivated area of alfalfa and cotton decreased in most scenarios. The results of the hydrological model simulations (WEAP model) showed that the change in cropping pattern (due to marketing network reform) made increase water use in Neyshabur basin and increase pressure on groundwater. It seems the marketing reform could not reduce overdraft of water resources. Complementary policies appear to be necessary to gain desirable achievements from marketing network reform and reduce groundwater overdraft.

Keywords: hydro-economic model; regional positive mathematical programming; water resources management; WEAP

Date published: 2017-04-28