Market-based Groundwater Resources Management Considering the Uncertainty of Water Consumption Monitoring

The decrease in access to groundwater resources and the constant drop in the water level of aquifers in different regions of the world due to the over extraction and unsustainable management of these resources have caused many environmental, economic and social problems. In the regard, lots of researches have been carried out about the groundwater market as a suitable solution for aquifers restoration. However in some cases the water market has increased the tension on water resources due to the lack of proper water market mechanism and monitoring of water withdrawals. The main purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate a mechanism for the groundwater market in order to redistribute the water rights of groundwater resources and determine the exchange price in the market, taking into account the existing uncertainties. Therefore, proposing efficient and effective groundwater market mechanism, taking into account the institutional, economic, social and environmental components, is of great importance.  In this article, proposing and evaluating the mechanism of the smart water market, a model has been presented for the management of groundwater resources by considering the existing uncertainties. Also, remote sensing of evapotranspiration is proposed as a new approach to measure and monitor water consumption in the groundwater market. In this regard, the uncertainty resulting from the error of remotely-sensed evapotranspiration in the results of the groundwater market mechanism has been evaluated using the robust decision-making (RDM) method. Based on the uncertainty resulting from the error of the remote sensing of the evapotranspiration, the amount of allowed water rights in each season has been considered as an interval. Since the probabilistic distribution of these variables is not known, it is necessary to use non-probabilistic methods to analyze the uncertainty and reach a robust decision. In this regard, considering all possible combinations of seasonal water rights (as different market scenarios) and calculating the decision criteria for each of them, the degree of desirability of these scenarios can be determined. The methodology can be generalized for different study areas, however to evaluate its efficiency, the proposed models and algorithms are assessed using the data of Nough region in Rafsanjan plain, as one of the forbidden plains with high economic value of water in terms of pistachio production. By designing and evaluating groundwater market mechanism, taking into account the economic and social components, sustainable management of groundwater resources is expected to be promoted and farmers' livelihoods to be less affected by water restrictive policies. The results show that the proposed mechanism of the seasonal groundwater market has increased the economic efficiency of water consumption in the study area by 25%. Also, with the implementation of the water market, the redistribution of water rights has a better fit with the users’ cultivated area. Finally, using RDM method, the best scenario is determined as a decision including the allowed water rights values for four auction seasons in the year of market implementation. By choosing the allowed seasonal water rights within the range of strategies related to the best scenario, it is possible to achieve a sustainable policy of seasonal redistribution of groundwater rights in the presence of uncertainty in the market monitoring algorithm.