Copulas and hydro-economic models for assessing the impacts of climate change in irrigated agriculture

Abstract

Climate change significantly affects water resources through alterations in rainfall patterns, reduced rainfall quantities, rising temperatures, and prolonged drought cycles. Consequently, the escalating demand for water coupled with diminishing water availability is anticipated to lead to a critical water scarcity issue in the future unless proactive and innovative strategies are implemented.The impact of climate change on water resources is globally recognized as an increasingly vital concern, given its intricate interconnections with various sectors, notably agriculture, energy, and the provision of drinking water. Consequently, the scientific community has dedicated substantial efforts to devise optimal water resource management strategies in response to the challenges posed by climate change. Over the past four decades, hydro-economic models (HEM) have been instrumental in proposing solutions to adapt to evolving climatic conditions.This paper presents a newhydro-economic optimization model accounting for climatic uncertainties. The problem is formulated as a chance-constrained program in which the dependence structure between hydrologic and meteorologic variables is modeled using copula theory. The novelty of the approach lies in the capacity of the model to optimize the water resources, taking into account the dependence between agronomic, socio-economic, and hydrologic systems and climatic uncertainties.