Investigating the Price and Non-price Scenarios Impacts of Irrigation Water for Adaptation of Climate Change: Using Hydro-economic Model (Case Study: Sarab County)

Climate change is one of the main issues in the 21st century and has been felt in many regions of world. The greatest impact of climate change is on the water resource sector. Ajichay, as one of the main agricultural areas and a source of water consumption around the Lake Urmia, has lost its efficiency as the supplier of water and is considered as the center of crisis due to changes in the climate, lack of precipitation, and human factors. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate the impacts of water resources management scenarios for adaptation of climate change on water resources, cropping patterns and profits of farmers using a hydro-economic model. The HadCM3 model and LARS-WG downscaling were used to generate daily climatic data under the emissions of A2 scenario. The results showed that the average rainfall decreased in 38% under A2 emission scenario during 2018-2050 period. In the next period of 2018-2050, the average annual temperature will also increase by 2.5 °C compared to the baseline period. Changes in the cropping area due to climate change show that among the studied crops, bean had the highest reduction in cultivation, which stemmed from its high-water requirement. Results showed the profit in all the sub-bases had a rise after increasing irrigation efficiency scenario. Thus, applying increasing efficiency scenario, in addition to more useful and efficient use of allocated water, will also increase farmers' profits which offer a better situation than the other scenarios. Overall, the findings of the current study revealed that without changing the management strategies there would be a considerable reduction in water resource in near future. The analysis of scenarios revealed that policies alone cannot compensate for water problems and there is a need for plenty of scenario for optimum results.