Investigation water reduction consumption policies on agricultural sustainability in intermediate climate of Golestan Province

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the agriculture sustainability and determine the cultivation pattern in the Caspian temperate climate by the implementation of water consumption reduction policies (price, quota and a combination of the two) based on five scenarios of economic, environmental, social, and equal and experts' opinion preferences. The required information including documentary and field data from the production cost questionnaire and face-to-face interviews with farmers were obtained in the 2019-2020 crop year. The questionnaire and interviews with experts were used to calculate the weights of sustainability criteria and sub-criteria. In order to achieve the goals of the study, Positive Mathematical Programming method and Analytic Hierarchy Process were used. Based on the average opinion of experts used in this study, economic, social and environmental weights criteria in sustainability were calculated to be 0.453, 0.232 and 0.315, respectively. Also, the cultivation pattern will change based on the implementation of water consumption reduction policies. According to the economic and environmental sub-criteria, a 30% water quota policy and according to the social sub-criteria, a 50% price increase policy will lead to agriculture sustainability and optimal water consumption at the same time. In addition, to improve the pattern of water consumption in the agricultural sector, in the city of Turkmen as a representative of the Caspian temperate climate, a policy to reduce the volume of water use by 30% is proposed by applying policies (price, quotas and a combination of the two) in all preferential scenarios except the social preference. In the social preference scenario, a 50% increase in the water price is proposed. In the other words, there is an opposition between economic and environmental sustainability and social sustainability when implementing water consumption reduction policies And there must be an exchange between them..