An econometric irrigated crop allocation model for analyzing the impact ofwater restriction policies

The objective of the Spanish government-funded GESMO project is to research on new water policy evaluation and monitoring tools, applied to aquifer 8/ 23 in the Eastern Mancha, which covers one of the most important areas unde r the charge of the Jucar Catchment Confederation. The project is to output two types of end products: Decision Support Systems for defining water use policies, including economic impact and environmental simulators within a single multi-criteria decision-making environment and Measure Monitoring an d Control Systems employing tele-detection and simulation of crop water nee ds. The Decision Support Systems will include three, highly complex, theore tical models in a single information technology product: a three-dimensiona l aquifer 8/23 behavior simulation model, an econometric model to predict c rop allocation depending on the economic environment, water availabilities, etc., and an automatic alternative generation and evaluation system based on a multi-criteria methodology. The objective of the system is to advise o n possible water policies and how they would materialize into spatially and temporally distributed water quotas (m(3)/ha) with the objective of both s afeguarding the aquifer in the medium and long term and increasing the econ omic profitability of regional agriculture. In this paper, a regional econo metric model is presented for studying the impact of water use quotas on th e main irrigated crops allocation in the region. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.