An investigation into the effect of agronomic and horticultural diversity on groundwater depletion: The application of the spatial panel approach

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Jafar Azizi ¹
• Nasibeh Zarei ²
• Abolfazl Dayani ³
• Hamed Ghaderzadeh ⁴
• Aisan Mokhber ⁵

¹ Department of Economics, Tehran North Branch, Tehran, Iran

² Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM), Iran

³ Mashhad University

⁴ Kurdestan University

⁵ Gorgan University

10.30495/wej.2025.33807.2427

Abstract

This research studied the effect of agronomic and horticultural diversity on groundwater depletion in different provinces of Iran. So, we used data for 30 provinces over the timespan of 2001-2021 within a spatial panel model. The agronomic and horticultural diversities of crop production were calculated for each province using the composite entropy index. The results show that the agronomic and horticultural diversity indices have positive and significant effects on the logarithm of groundwater depletion of the provinces. This means that as the number of agronomic and horticultural crops increases, the water demand increases, resulting in a decline in groundwater level. Furthermore, the variable of agronomic diversity in each province has a negative and insignificant indirect effect. The direct and overall effects of this variable are positive and significant. A 1% increase in the agronomic diversity in each province results in 0.45% higher groundwater depletion in the same province and the neighboring provinces. Finally, the variable of horticultural diversity has negative and significant indirect effects on the dependent variable. It, also, has positive and significant direct and overall effects. If all conditions are supposed to be constant, a 1% increase in the horticultural diversity in one province will increase groundwater depletion in the same province and the neighboring provinces by, on average, 0.64%. The agricultural sector is, therefore, recommended to move toward specialized cultivation in wide areas consistent with environmental conditions in order to use groundwater resources optimally.

Main Subjects

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