Sustainable planning, management, and evaluation of water resources in irrigation District No. 041, Río Yaqui, Mexico

Abstract

Irrigation District No. 041, Río Yaqui, in Northwestern Mexico, has been affected by an unsustainable agricultural development due to intensive agricultural practices that combined, with an extreme drought, collapsed the system in 2003. The objective of this research is to develop a multiyear simulation-optimization model that allows for the creation of a quantitative and transferable methodology that promotes and impulses better and sustainable practices in the activities of the irrigation district. Furthermore, it attempts to define indices that explain the most important sustainable attributes of the system, and as a result of this study it is determined at each decision level, how these sustainable practices will be performed and by whom. In this research, the annual hydrologic-agronomic-economic simulation-optimization model developed by Minjares et al. (2008) was used and extended to a multiyear model connecting the annual models. In the long-term model, sustainable criteria like productivity, reliability, resilience, vulnerability and equity, to control the relationship between the decisions taken in the present and their long term consequences are included. The results indicate that the model can be used for developing the annual irrigation plan for the irrigation district, under different management scenarios in the long-term framework, and to identify possible practices or decisions that can put the sustainability of the system at risk. In addition, the model can be used to evaluate water management practices and decisions that have been taken in the past and possible conflicts for water in the future.