مدیریت تقاضای آب آبیاری: کاربرد روش مطلوبیت چند معیاری

The main objective of this paper is to study the differential impacts of various irrigation water pricing policies. The methodology used is based upon Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) mathematical programming models and also simulation. Two kinds of data needed to feed the models were obtained from official records and surveying. The analysis of water pricing policy indicates that the most important relative savings take place in the more conservative farmers due to their risk-aversion behavior. Also it can be seen that in the elastic segments of the demand curves the increase in the price of water encourages great saving in consumption due to changes in mixed crops, crops production by deficit irrigation methods and production of rain-fed crops. Results clearly demonstrate that each homogenous group of farmers displays different behavior patterns related to this natural resource. Therefore, this shows the usefulness of differential analysis in evaluating the impact of water pricing policy.