Investment planning for irrigation development projects

This paper considers the problem of choosing among the technologies available for irrigation by tubewells to obtain an investment plan which maximizes the net agricultural benefits from a proposed project in a developing country. Cost and benefit relationships are derived and incorporated into a mathematical model which is solved using a modification of the dynamic programming procedure for solving the knapsack problem. The optimal schedule is seen to favor small capacity wells, drilled by indigenous methods, with supplementary water distribution systems.