Water markets in developing countries are difficult to implement due to social, environmental, and technical restrictions. However, the primary concern in irrigation districts with a lack of a functioning market mechanism is the economically efficient allocation of water. In this light, the objective of this study is the development of an Economic-Operational framework that could be used for the most economically efficient allocation of water. This framework is expected to provide an infrastructure for delivering volumetric mutually-related main economic components: Positive Mathematical Programing -PMP- and the Model Predictive Control -MPC- which is added as an operational model component. The economic model -PMP- simulates the existing conditions surrounding the agricultural activities and calculates the agricultural sector’s income, as well as the economic value of water, considering current cropping patterns and the economic value of water. Consequently, the operational model -MPC- distributes and delivers water to the agricultural units based on the weighted average of water’s economic value. Operational performance of the entire canal system is then assessed based on the customized operational assessment indicators for developing the framework. Finally, the last part of the framework includes performance evaluation of the approach introduced in the present study with respect to sustainable development goals, using the multi-criteria decision-making -MCDM- method. For this purpose, the effect of any changes in the calculated volume of water, through employing the framework, on the economic, social, and environmental indicators can be observed. This framework is expected to provide a guideline for the water authorities in ranking the inter-sectoral impacts of economic, social, and environmental effects of the operational scenarios. The developed framework provides a mechanism in which managers and planners of irrigation districts can test and assess their policies in different schemes before implementation. Also, the framework will produce the economic results of possible actions of farmers involving different managerial, climatic, and agricultural scenarios. The developed framework is then tested on the Roodasht Irrigation District, located in the semi-arid region in Iran. The simulation results are then examined.

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