Sustainable Conjunctive operation of water resources in Agriculture Sector: Cyclic Storage Approach

The agricultural sector is the largest consumer of water resources. Therefore, Sustainable water allocation to this sector is more essential. Surface and groundwater are both important sources for agriculture water supply. Previous studies have emphasized that the conjunctive water use of surface and groundwater can reduce the risks associated with uncertain surface water supplies and their fluctuations. The cyclic and noncyclic(traditional) storage systems are two main kinds of conjunctive water use systems. The main difference between these storage systems is their method of artificial recharge which in the noncyclic storage system, the artificial recharge only occurs during the spill, but in the cyclic storage system, the artificial recharge can occur any time. In other words, the regulated water is not allocated to artificial recharge area in noncyclic method. In the current study it was tried to quantize and compare Sustainability of water allocation in the agriculture sector with cyclic and noncyclic approaches. The results indicated that in the noncyclic operation of the system, the aquifer is recharged in wet season and its storage used in dry season. Therefore, by management and regulation of surface water in cyclic operation compared with noncyclic operation, the sustainability index increases from 0.69 to 0.86, respectively.