A Study on Comprehensive Evaluation of the Water-saving Irrigation in Arid Area of Northeast China

Water saving irrigation is the key technology and strategy to improve the agricultural development in the arid area of north China. Since 2012 the government paid enormous subsidies to invest the water infrastructure in northeast china. The aim of this paper is to estimate the comprehensive effect of the water saving irrigation and provide the practical evidence for the subside policy evaluation. The study is based on the field scale data collected from 192 maize households in Tongliao city of the Nei Monggol Autonomous Region where is the typical irrigating agriculture area. The paper established an index system to evaluate the economic benefits, social benefits and ecological benefits of water saving irrigation technology. In order to consistent with the previous research, the criteria is made into excellent, good and bad. The results show that economic benefits and social benefits are good. However, the ecological benefits is bad because of the soil pollution brought by the plastic film. So to further improve the technology level still is the focus of the China water-saving agricultural development. And the government should pay more attention on the constraints of farmer technology adoption and the core problem such as the film residual and the ancillary facility should be solved effectively.