Optimizing the Trade of Virtual Water in Regional Cropping Pattern of the Isfahan Province: Application of Multi-Criteria Models

Virtual water trade as a new approach to global water resources, has attracted global attention and allocation of 90 percent of the agricultural sector to this trade has revealed special attention to it. The present study with the aim of optimizing the trade of virtual water in 23 cities located in the Isfahan province was done in 2014. For this purpose a multi-criteria regional cropping pattern with the ability to transfer crops was designed and implemented. The results of this study showed that Isfahan province has 118.7 million cubic meters net exports of virtual water in the current cropping pattern and implementation of the multi-criteria model led to 17.8 million cubic meters net import of virtual water. Therefore, improvement of net import of virtual water was 136.5 million cubic meters that it shows the stored virtual water during the optimization process of exchanges. Renewable water per capita index (Falkenmark) with an average of 119 cubic meters per year improved by multi-criteria. The results can help to decision-making managers in the optimization field of virtual water trade. From this point of view can be cited determination of regional net virtual water trade in order to deal with inappropriate temporal and spatial distribution of precipitation in Isfahan province by transport of agricultural products.