Evaluating Irrigation Water Efficiency Using Entropy Weight-TOPSIS Method: A Case Study

Abstract

【Objective】 Improving irrigation water use efficiency is critical to developing water-saving agriculture. The aim of this paper is to present and validate a model to comprehensively evaluate irrigation water use efficiency. 【Method】 The model is based on the entropy-weighted technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), using the evaluation indexes constructed from irrigation water efficiency. We then applied it to evaluate water use efficiency from 2017 to 2020 in six irrigation areas in the Second Division of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. 【Result】 The results calculated from the model are consistent with the ground-truth data. The rank of the results calculated from the model is closely correlated with the rank of the effective utilization coefficient of the irrigation water and the rank of the results calculated from the AHP-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (P<0.01). The coefficient of variation of the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method is larger than that of the AHP-fuzzy evaluation, and the former is hence more reliable for calculating irrigation water efficiency. The factors influencing irrigation water efficiency in each area can be determined based on the difference between the evaluation indexing grade and the comprehensive evaluation grade of the irrigation water efficiency. 【Conclusion】 The entropy-weighted TOPSIS method is reliable for evaluating irrigation water efficiency. It has potential for helping develop water-saving irrigation systems for the studied region and regions with similar conditions.

Keywords

• irrigation
• water efficiency
• index system
• entropy weight method
• technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution