Assessing the impacts of groundwater management policies on farmer cooperation using agent-based modeling

Highlights

	● A coupled human-natural model based on an agent-based model was developed.
	● Different levels of farmer cooperation on region sustainability were evaluated.
	● Different scenarios based on farmer characteristics and behavior were developed.
	● Penalties for overexploitation of groundwater resources increased cooperation.
	● Awareness raising and training can increase 600 of users of modern irrigation systems.

Abstract

This study presents a new holistic framework for modeling farmer decision-making by integrating both top-down and bottom-up approaches. It uses three interlinked subsystems to evaluate how changes in water policies impact farmer decisions and profits: the first model simulates water balance, the second simulates farmer behavior, and the third assesses farmer profits. Two scenarios are explored: Scenario I introduces penalties for groundwater overexploitation, and Scenario II implements awareness raising and training to encourage using modern irrigation systems. The results show that penalties lead to reductions in water requests exceeding limits by 8%, 45%, and 68% for fines of 1000, 5000, and 10,000 IRR·m⁻³, with corresponding net profit decreases of 1.3%, 8.0%, and 11.6%. The ranges of farmer cooperation for groundwater management vary from 20% to 50% over the 10-year simulation period. In Scenario II, increasing the radius of awareness from 0.5 to 2 km substantially increases the adoption of modern irrigation from 1457 to 2057 farmers. These findings highlight how different policy measures impact various types of farmer based on their specific characteristics and preferences.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Agent-based modeling / AnyLogic / farmers’ cooperation / behavioral subsystem / system dynamics / groundwater depletion

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2024582 contains supplementary materials.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Sayed-Ali Ohab-Yazdi and Azadeh Ahmadi declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)