Insights from Hydro-Economic Modeling for Climate Resilience in the Nazas–Aguanaval Watershed in Mexico
2025
David-Eduardo Guevara-Polo | Carlos Patiño-Gomez | Josué Medellin-Azuara | Benito Corona-Vasquez
Agriculture uses 80% of global water resources, driving several water management challenges across the world. These challenges require the exchange of effective practices. We found that California&rsquo:s Tulare Lake Basin (TLB) and Mexico&rsquo:s Nazas&ndash:Aguanaval watershed share key features, leading us to propose the TLB as a model of climate resilience. After contrasting the policies for TLB with those for Nazas&ndash:Aguanaval, we found that no constrained pricing policy proposal exists for the Nazas&ndash:Aguanaval watershed. We apply a hydro-economic model using Positive Mathematical Programming to support an incentive structure for reducing water use in agriculture while maximizing profits. The optimal crop policy could reduce water demand by 20%, with a trade-off of an 11% reduction in profits. This would save 185.4 hm3/year, which represents 90% of the volume required for an ongoing infrastructure project for urban water supply in the watershed. Additionally, implementing a price of 14 USD/dam3 could increase the irrigation district&rsquo:s revenue, boosting farmers&rsquo: profits by up to 16% and district revenue by up to 134%. Our results demonstrate the benefits of applying Positive Mathematical Programming in a semiarid watershed to support water and agriculture policy. This research is a starting point for increasing the climate resilience of watersheds under water and financial stress.
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