Review: Computer-based models for managing the water-resource problems of irrigated agriculture [Revue: Modèles informatiques pour la gestion des problèmes de ressources en eau de l’agriculture irriguée] [Revisão: Modelos informatizados para gestão de problemas de recursos hídricos da agricultura irrigada] [Revisión: Modelos basados en computadoras para el manejo de problemas del recurso agua en la agricultura bajo riego]

Irrigation is essential for achieving food security to the burgeoning global population but unplanned and injudicious expansion of irrigated areas causes waterlogging and salinization problems. Under this backdrop, groundwater resources management is a critical issue for fulfilling the increasing water demand for agricultural, industrial, and domestic uses. Various simulation and optimization approaches were used to solve the groundwater management problems. This paper presents a review of the individual and combined applications of simulation and optimization modeling for the management of groundwater-resource problems associated with irrigated agriculture. The study revealed that the combined use of simulation-optimization modeling is very suitable for achieving an optimal solution for groundwater-resource problems, even with a large number of variables. Independent model tools were used to solve the problems of uncertainty analysis and parameter estimation in groundwater modelling studies. Artificial neural networks were used to minimize the problem of computational complexity. The incorporation of socioeconomic aspects into the groundwater management modeling would be an important development in future studies. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.