Investigating the effect of laser leveling on water demand management in Marvdasht

Low water efficiency in agricultural sector and drought incidence in recent years caused serious water crisis in Iran and resulted in implementing various water supply and demand management policies. Introducing laser land leveling incentives in Fars province is among such policies. We used PMP model to investigate the effects of laser leveling on input efficiency and water demand management. The date used in this study included cross sectional data collected from a sample of 250 farmers in Marvdasht. The results indicated that utilizing this technology can reduce the need for labor and increase the farmer's revenue. Moreover, crop pattern is expected to switch to high water consuming products such as rice and tomato and to decrease water tensions for wheat, barley and corn in the region. Thus, the technology wont be useful in the cases of weak accessibility to water and under high water tensions. However, laser land leveling may be efficient with regard to yield improvement, input efficiency and facilitating of agricultural operations.