摘要
Insight into the different values of water is essential to support rational decision making about policies, management and investments in the water sector. The main objective of this paper is to estimate an economic value of irrigation water in Jordan by choosing appropriate methodology fit with available data. The Residual Imputation Method （RIM） is used to determine the average economic value of irrigation water used in agriculture across crops. The results showed that the weighted average of water value used in field crops is JD 0.44 m＂3 and JD 1.23 m3 for vegetable crops and JD 0.23 m3 for fruit trees. The overall weighted average water value in irrigation is estimated with JD 0.51 m＂3. With regard to individual crops, cucumbers had the highest water values with about JD 6.05 m3, followed by string beans with JD 2.64 m3, and sweet pepper with JD 2.54 m3. The lowest returns per m3 were provided by squash, radish and hot pepper. For fruit tress banana has the highest water value JD 0.79 m3 and olive tress has the lowest with only JD 0.069 m3. The current practice of some banana producers is economically rational by installing Reverse Osmosis unit to irrigate banana, since water value is twice the desalination costs of one cubic meter. The estimated values represent the maximum price that farmers might be willing to pay for water under the current market conditions. Water subsidy distorts farmers＇ perception of water as a scarce and thus valuable resource. Low water prices are thus likely to engender excessive use. It is necessary to allow water prices to recover the real cost of water supply and to ensure financial sustainability of water utilities.
