The Impact Assessment of Water Resource Management in Rainfed Area in the Upper Ping River Basin, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Abstract

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 of water resource management in rainfed area. In these cases, a multi criteria decision making model has been determined that aims at allocating efficient water and land resources to farms in the Upper Ping River basin in Chiang Mai, by optimizing a set of important socio- economic objectives which depend on sustainable agricultural and rural development. The solution was found by the using two analytical steps as follows: single objective optimization and compromise programming. In rainfed areas, the model cropping pattern advises farmers to grow the in-season rice, tobacco and longan. If the farmers follow the model cropping pattern even the gross margin increases insignificantly and water using increases slightly from the up to now existing water on farm consumption. The water resource management in rainfed areas the farmers store the scarce water in small reservoirs and water tanks on their farms for saving it for the dry season because the water on-farm security is an indispensable prerequisite in decide making upon the next year crop.