A data mining approach to simulating farmers' crop choices for integrated water resources management

Abstract

Water and land resources in Thailand are increasingly under pressure from development. In particular, there are many resource conflicts associated with agricultural production in northern Thailand. Communities in these areas are significantly constrained in the land and water management decisions they are able to make. This paper describes the application of a data mining approach to describing and simulating farmers' decision rules in a catchment in northern Thailand. This approach is being applied to simulate social, economic and biophysical constraints on farmers' decisions in these areas as part of an integrated water management model. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.