A single decision‐maker approach to irrigation reservoir and farm management decision making

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A model for optimizing short‐, intermediate‐, and long‐run irrigation decisions for surface water reservoirs is developed for a river valley irrigation system controlled by one decision maker. The modeled valley is characterized by highly variable reservoir inflows and crop growing conditions, and irrigable land supplies which are plentiful relative to available water. It advances similar work of the early 1970s pertaining to a corn monoculture by using a complex soil water‐plant growth simulation model for cotton developed by crop scientists over a number of years, and by employing an extra simulation model to simulate the effects of using optimal decisions derived by dynamic programming. The results indicate a potential for disagreement about reservoir management strategies and level of irrigation development between irrigators, other members of the local economy, and national economy policy makers. The assumption of one decision maker internalizes the derivation and communication of supply and demand probabilities, giving the results a level of economic efficiency which makes them a standard against which to judge the results of decentralized models.

This publication has 17 references indexed in Scilit: