Agua que Falta

A water-user organisation on the central coast of Peru shares one river among 40 export orchards on 3,000 hectares, 2,400 smallholders on 6,000 hectares, a town that takes drinking water and a wetland that is owed an ecological flow, over four irrigation seasons: a normal year, a dry year, a recovery and a wet year.

As technical manager, the participant proposes the tariff for the use of the canals, chooses whether and how to line the main canal and whether to agree a compensated-fallowing protocol before the drought; in the dry year sets the allocation rule (pro rata, priority for the orchards or compensated fallowing), protects or cuts the priority flows and decides how to control unauthorised intakes; then makes a second investment and writes the rules and the tariff for the next decade.

The model is deterministic: water met drives each crop yield, thirsty orchards lose trees for good, canal efficiency and intakes decide how much water arrives, and the junta lives on a tariff that falls with the water delivered.

The score combines the quality of each decision with the valley margin, smallholder income and the junta finances, and is capped for taking the ecological flow, for leaving the smallholders far behind the orchards without compensation, and for breaking the credit line. Spanish (primary) and English.

An intermediate simulation for participants who already know the core concepts of the subject, designed for master's and MBA programmes.