Modeling valuation of agricultural water rights: A Case Study in Pashkola of Mazandaran province

An important factor that limits water market operation in Iran is division of land and water markets that is lack of distinction between water and land ownership. In this situation due to lack of price signals from competitive market, the economic value of water permits could not identified. In this paper, we try to develop a model that could determine the implicit value of water permits based on hedonic price framework in Pashkola region of Mazendaran province. The results showed that water permit value equals 20-27 percent of total economic value of land parcels. Therefore, considering the average value of one hectare of land in this region, the economic value of water permits was estimated 35-46 million Rials per hectare