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Optimal Utilization of Natural Resources in Crop Planning (Case Study: Miandoab Plain)

Farahmand, Hamid | 2016

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 48100 (09)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Civil Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Tajrishy, Masoud
  7. Abstract:
  8. Most of the surface and ground water resources are allocated to agriculture in Iran. Even though lots of water is used in this field, the level of crop production is not satisfactory due to mismanagement. Besides, environmental issues caused by surface and ground water overuse has brought the crucial situation into the governers’ attention. Over the past two decades, Lake Urmia water basin has encountered lots of environmental issues such as decrease in lake water surface. Any effort to improve water reources consumption can be very helpful to lake restoration process. Miandoab plain known as one of the main sub basins of Lake Urmia provides the lake with more than half of its surface water resources. Nearly 540 million cubic meters of both surface and ground water is used for agricultural purposes in this plain. This dissertation is mainly focused on allocation of farm area and water resources to crops in order to maximize the income and minimize the irrigation water need. As a result, not only economical status of the local farmers improves, but also a substantial volume of water is stored to help the lake restoration program. It is essential to simulate crop production to be able to design irrigation program. Using crop production function, crop production and irrigation need was estimated for differnet planting dates and levels of deficit irrigation. Results of crop production simulation act as the input parameters for the optimization algorithm. Due to the paradoxical behavior of the two objective functions (maximization of income and minimization of water need), it is impossible to reach both functions simultaneously. As a result, instead of a unique optimum answer, a group of optimum answers are computed. Due to its precision and ease of use in MATLAB, multi objective genetic algorithm, a common method of optimization, was used in this study. Results confirmed the possibility of decreasing water need and increase of agricultural income. The best environmental solution showed a decrease of 60 % in water need while the income increased by about 30 %. Implementation difficulties prevent water decision makers to choose the best scenario (including irrigation date set, planting date change, deficit irrigation and crop pattern change) as a practical decision. Yet, decrease in water consumption due to more use of rainfall water caused by changing planting date, undesirability of planting alfalfa, sugar beet, and maize, and the desirability of planting winter wheat and tomato are useful hints to decision makers to choose their future policies
  9. Keywords:
  10. Optimum Allocation ; Production Function ; Genetic Algorithm ; Income ; Crop Planning ; Miandoab Plain ; Deficit Irrigation

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