Effect of Water Pricing and Allocation on Management of Groundwater Resources in Kabudarahang Plain

Excessive withdrawal of groundwater resources in the agricultural sector has led to an increase in cultivated land area and agricultural production, however, it has led to dropping of groundwater levels and drainage of aquifers. Consequently, most of Iran's plains are now considered as forbidden plains for underground water extraction. Therefore, proper policies for management of groundwater resources are essential. For this purpose, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of economic policies of the agricultural sector on management of ground water resources in Kabodarahang Plain, by using a Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) and Maximum Entropy (ME). The data and information was collected by referring to the relevant organizations and completing 141 questionnaires with multi-stage cluster sampling by farmers in 2016. The results showed that application of various senarios such as price increases, groundwater allocation , and combination of quotation scenarios simultaneously with increasing prices (combined) at levels of 10%, 20%, and 30% cause reduction in cropped area, decreased net profit of farmers, and reduced water consumption. Also, the results showed that the groundwater price increases scenario was not much effective and only increased the farmer's expenses, but the allocation/quotation polices and the combined policy are recommended as effective policies. Another result revealed that the quotation scenario, compared to the other scenarios, has higher economic returns per cubic meter of water consumption, thus it has been introduced as the best scenario in this research. Finally, it is suggested that the cropping pattern be directed towards products such as wheat and potato that have more gross profit for the water consumed and thus have more economic returns.