change in irrigation methods under the framework of pes policy tool to restore lake urmia

among well-known managerial practices to protect scarce biological resources, payment for ecosystem services is an efficient and effective policy tool to manage such resources and its application is attracting a growing interest in the world. this is why, in addition to clarifying the role of such a policy tool to encourage farmers to modify their irrigation system to reduce pressures on water resources of siminehroud basin, a technical and economic assessment of its feasibility, has been done in this study. according to the results of this study, the idea of “encouraging farmers to change current irrigation practices in their agricultural land” seems to be widely acceptable to them. about 91.45% of land owners have stated their willingness to adopt pressurized irrigation systems. meanwhile, from technical and economic point of view, realization of such an idea has benefit-cost ratio of 3.98 and it will lead to a decrease in annual demand of 283 mcm water from siminehroud water resources. therefore, extension of the plan of change in irrigation practices in all sub-basins of lake urmia will be highly efficient and it can considerably increase water supply needed for restoration measures.