Assessment of non-monetary facilities in Urmia Lake basin under PES scheme: a rehabilitation solution for the dry lake in Iran

Abstract

The decline in Urmia Lake basin’s water resources has resulted in a severe drought of the lake. The drought of this hyper-saline lake has put lives of 6.4 million inhabitants at risk. This study was conducted to assess the technical and economic employability of a payment for ecosystem services (PES) method as a policy tool to improve water resources management of Siminehroud river basin which is the most important tributary of Urmia Lake basin. For this purpose, the target areas were identified after the development of a land-use map for the basin. Then, by recruiting the integrated interview method and distributing 398 questionnaires, the required data were collected to assess the employability of the proposed PES method. Among various PES schemes, two methods including a) payment for shifting irrigation methods and b) payment to change cropping patterns in the frame of “Willingness to Accept” (WTA) were proposed to farmers. The results suggest that farmers highly welcomed both proposed methods. The benefit–cost ratio (BCR) for the change in irrigation system was 3.98, whereas the changes for the cropping pattern were 0.8 (for rapeseed), 0.72 (for soybean), and 1.09 (for safflower). As a result, shifting irrigation methods and changing cultivation patterns to safflower are both economically justifiable.