Multicriterion decision making in irrigation planning

Selection of the best compromise irrigation plan is examined in the multi objective context. The study deals with three conflicting objectives: net benefits, agricultural production and labour employment. Three-stage procedure is adopted combining multi objective optimisation, cluster analysis and multicriterion decision-making (MCDM) methods. Two MCDM methods, namely, PROMETHEE-2 and a newly developed method EXPROM-2, are employed in the evaluation. Spearman rank correlation test is used to assess the correlation between the ranks. The above methodology is applied to a case study of Sri Ram Sagar Project, Andhra Pradesh, India. Sensitivity analysis studies indicated that ranking pattern is quite robust to parameter changes as far as the first two positions are concerned. It is found that net benefits, agricultural production and labour employment per hectare on average for the culturable command area are 8980 rupees ($225), 3.73 tonnes and 242 man-days, respectively, in the best compromise plan. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.