Management of surface water in the irrigated perimeter sumé-PB using GIS-MCDA

Abstract

This work presents a GIS-based Multiple-Criteria Decision Analysis (GIS-MCDA) for helping on water management in an irrigated area. The main water source is a reservoir called “Sumé" (Sumé Dam). Technical, environmental and economic criteria are used for a better decision-making process. The Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) is the methodology approach. Irrigation possibilities are considered based on an initial diagnosis about the surface water available. Chemical and microbiological quality are analyzed in order to obtain a suitable water for each irrigated lot. There are some restrictions established by the spatial modelling, and the results shows two alternatives and two scenarios. First, when the economical criterion is the priority, the model shows that an area of about 60 hectares is not suitable. For the second alternative, when the technical criterion is the priority, a huge area is showed as not suitable (about 167 hectares). In the latter scenario, only areas close to the reservoir should be irrigated.