José A. GÓMEZ-LIMON 1 y Yolanda MARTÍNEZ 2
1 Departamento de Economía Agraria. E.T.S.II.AA. Palencia. Universidad de Valladolid. Avda. de Madrid, 57 - 34071 Palencia. E-mail: limon@iaf.uva.es
2 Unidad de Economía Agraria. Servicio de Investigación Agroalimentaria. DGA. Avda. MontaÒana, 930 ñ 50.080 Zaragoza. E-mail: ymartinez@aragob.es
This paper develops a multi-criteria methodology to simulate irrigation water markets at basin level. For this purpose it is assumed that irrigators try to optimise personal multi-attribute utility functions with their productive decision making (crop mix), subjected to a set of constraints based upon the structural features of their farms. In this sense, farmers with homogeneous behaviour about water use have been grouped, being this groups established as agents "type" to be considered in the whole model for water market simulation. This model for market simulation calculates the equilibrium through a solution that maximises the aggregate welfare, quantified as the sum of the multi-attribute utilities reached by each one of the participating agents. This methodology has been empirically applied for the Duero basin (Northern Spain), obtaining as main result that the implementation of this institution increases economic efficiency and agricultural labour demand, particularly during shortage periods (droughts).