The Impact Assessment of Water Resource Management on Farms in the Ping Watershed, Northern Thailand

Abstract

The irrational use of water in agriculture is often responsible for several problems concerning the depletion of water resources. Water resources sustainability has crucial for the existence of farming system which is dependent on the cropping pattern practices. This paper concerns the studies of existing water resource management and determines factors affecting decision making about water use and management within different farming systems. In these cases, a multi-criteria decision making model (MCDM) has been determined that aims at allocating efficient water and land resources to farms in the Ping watershed area in northern Thailand by optimizing a set of important socio-economic objectives which depend on sustainable agricultural (rural) development. The solution was found by using two analytical steps as follows: single objective optimization and compromise programming.

Keywords

• water resource management
• multi-criteria decision making
• water using
• cropping pattern
• farming system