Integrated water resources management in Polrud Irrigation System

Water is needed in all aspects of life and is vital to its social, economical and environmental dimensions. Having a key role in sustainable development, water management requires an integrated approach. Irrigation water shortage promotes the development of innovative management and supply enhancement models. Effective water management requires a comprehensive consideration of all related aspects, e.g., technical, social, environmental, institutional, political and financial. Then the conventional methods of cost–benefit analysis and single-objective models have changed to multi-objective models. The rising of population in Iran puts significant pressure on authorities and infrastructures to provide water. Without improvement in water management, irrigation demand will continue to increase, water supplies will diminish and the population pressure will decay infrastructure. This paper describes compromise programming to solve multi-criteria decision making in irrigation planning for Polrud project in the North of Iran. The important objectives of project are: regulation of reliable water at the demand time, improving rice and tea production, domestic water supply, environmental needs as well as reducing social conflicts. After execution of the model, results show the optimum decision for crops pattern and extents of allocated water to each area. This study is a successful implementation of IWRM in irrigation planning.