Investigating the Effect of Knowledge Based Economy Components on Water Productivity and Consumption in Iran's Agricultural Sector

Nowadays, knowledge-based economics has been suggested as a way out of various problems. Given that more than 90 percent of water consumption is allocated to the agricultural sector, the establishment of agricultural knowledge that one of the components of which is the innovation and development of modern irrigation systems in agricultural lands, increases the efficiency of water consumption and production. Therefore, in this study, the effect of different components of knowledge-based economy on water productivity and consumption in Iran's agricultural sector during 2002-2017 has been investigated using the casual Bayesian network in 4 scenarios. The results showed that education and skills component had the least effect on growth rate of water use in Iranian agricultural sector and the probability of increasing growth rate of land area equipped with pressure irrigation with the implementation of the four scenarios of education and skills, economic and institutional regime, information and communication infrastructure and innovation system are 59/9%, 55%, 60% and 60%, respectively and the probability of decreasing growth rate of water use in the agricultural sector is 80%. So, moving to a knowledge-based economy can help to improvement of water efficiency in Iran's agricultural sector.