Browsing by Author "Harmancioglu, NB"

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    The Assessment of Irrigation Efficiency in Buyuk Menderes Basin
    Yilmaz, B; Yurdusev, MA; Harmancioglu, NB
    While extending irrigated areas to augment agricultural production, irrigation efficiency should be increased not only to improve the agricultural production but also to obtain the sustainable use of valuable and limited water resources. Through the use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is a linear programming technique to determine the relative efficiency of a decision-making unit, it is possible to decide whether the use of water in an irrigation district is efficient or not. In this study, an input oriented DEA model is constituted to focus on the efficient use of inputs, and the method is applied to the irrigation districts having similar types of agriculture in the Buyuk Menderes Basin, Turkey. This paper aims to determine the efficient irrigation district(s), in other words where the application of water is the most profitable, considering two inputs; water volume supplied and the total irrigated area, and one output, the total value of agricultural production. The weight restrictions consistent with decision makers' value judgements are added as constraints into the DEA models to prevent excessive weight flexibility assigned to inputs and outputs. The results have provided the efficiency scores of the irrigation districts and numerically delineated desired features of the irrigation districts for maximum efficiency. The analyses for three study years have inferred the robustness of the results. It is concluded that DEA is a practical tool for detecting local inefficiencies and proposing possible improvements for irrigation districts that could offer the greatest potential for growth.
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    Multi-criteria decision making for water resource management: a case study of the Gediz River Basin, Turkey
    Yilmaz, B; Harmancioglu, NB
    In this study, a water resource management model that facilitates indicator-based decisions, with respect to environmental, social and economic dimensions in a multiple criteria perspective, is developed for the Gediz River Basin in Turkey. The basic input of the proposed model is the quantity of surface water that is mainly allocated to irrigation purposes. The model has been applied under 3 different hydro-meteorological scenarios that reflect baseline as well as better and worse conditions of water supply and demand, not only to reach a comprehensive assessment of the water budget in the Gediz Basin, but also to evaluate the impacts of proposed management alternatives under different conditions. The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software is used as a simulation and evaluation tool to assess the performance of possible management alternatives; performance is measured by 9 indicators representing economic, social and environmental sustainability. The study has delineated the best management alternative on the basis of 3 different multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods, including simple additive weighting (SAW), compromise programming (CP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Each method is also applied with 7 different sets of criteria weights that represent objective judgements as well as subjective preferences of decision makers. The results of the study indicate that the decision on the best alternative is basically independent of the MCDM method used, but slightly sensitive to the weights assigned to the criteria as well as the data used in the analyses.
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    An Indicator Based Assessment for Water Resources Management in Gediz River Basin, Turkey
    Yilmaz, B; Harmancioglu, NB
    In this study, a water resources management model that facilitates indicator-based decisions with respect to environmental, social and economic dimensions is developed for the Gediz River Basin in Turkey The basic input of the proposed model is the quantity of surface water that is greatly allocated to irrigation purposes, therefore supply and demand interrelations in agricultural water use constitute the main focus of the study The model has been applied under three different hydro-meteorological scenarios that reflect baseline as well as better and worse conditions of water supply and demand, not only to reach an assessment of water budget, but also to evaluate the imp acts of proposed management alternatives under different conditions The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software is used as a simulation and evaluation tool to assess the performance of possible management alternatives, which is measured by nine proposed indicators The results of the study have indicated that the Gediz River Basin is quite sensitive to drought conditions, and the agricultural sector is significantly affected by irrigation deficits that increase sharply in drought periods Even if the optimistic scenario is assumed to occur, it is not possible to observe a significant improvement in the water budget, however, the negative impacts of climate change can possibly exacerbate the water crisis The Indicators also verified that, efficient water management is crucial to ensure the sustainable use of water resources with respect to environmental, social and economic dimensions