Economic Valuation of Sufficient and Guaranteed Irrigation Water Supply for Paddy Farms of Guilan Province

Cultivation of the strategic crop of rice highly depends to the existence of sufficient and guaranteed irrigation water, and water shortage stresses have irreparable effects on yield and quality of productions. Decrease of the Sefidrud river inflow in Guilan province which is the main source of supplying irrigation water for 171 thousand hectares under rice cropping area of this province, has been challenged sufficient and guaranteed irrigation water supply in many regions of mentioned province. Hence, in present study estimating the value that paddy farmers place on sufficient and guaranteed irrigation water supply has been considered. Economic valuation of sufficient and guaranteed irrigation water supply improves water resource management policies in demand side. Requested data set were obtained on the base of a survey and are collected from 224 paddy farms in rural regions that faced with irrigation water shortages. Then, using open-ended valuation approach and estimation of Tobit model via ML and two stages Heckman approach, eliciting paddy farmers' willingness to pay for sufficient and guaranteed irrigation water supply has been accomplished. Results revealed that farmers in investigated regions willing to pay 26.49 percent more than present costs of providing irrigation water in order to have sufficient and guaranteed irrigation water

Feasibility of Establishing Water Association Cooperatives in Guilan Province

The present study has done with the purpose of feasibility of establishing water association cooperatives in Guilan province using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The research method was descriptive and the data were collected by survey technique using purposive sampling method. Considering the background of participatory organization and systems three of them; traditional system, production cooperative and rural cooperative were used as competitor options using library research and paying attention to data analysis technique and selecting the best option for participatory irrigation systems, three main criteria were recognized as social, economic and attitudinal of exploiters. In addition, four sub-criteria were recognized for each of mentioned criteria. After that the hierarchical structure of the research was drawn and according to that three types of questionnaire were complied. In the next step, a list of experts and connoisseurs (connoisseur and harbinger experts) who had educations or occupational experience related to the research topic was made and among them 22 people were selected for filling out the questionnaire. Finally the results analysis was done by Super Decision software. The results showed that due to all of the studied criteria and sub-criteria in the research production cooperative system with the final weight of 0.421 had the highest priority so was considered as the best option for planning of the participatory irrigation system in order to form water association. Next to that traditional system with the final weight of 0.306 had the second priority and rural cooperative with the final weight of 0.273 had the 3rd priority. On the other hand, social sub-criteria had the most effect on traditional system and economic and attitudinal sub-criteria had the most effect on production cooperative