Evaluating the Economic Impact of Irrigation and Drainage Project

An Application of Spatial Durbin Model

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the local economic impact of the irrigation and drainage project in Tohoku and Hokuriku regions. Considering spatial autocorrelation between communities, Spatial Durbin Model is applied to the community-level data from the Rural Community Card, World Census of Agriculture and Forestry. The findings of this paper suggest that the irrigation and drainage project have impacted rural communities by increasing the ratio of area rent-in, and decreasing the ratio of ratio of farming household whose area of cultivated land is 2 hectares and over in the community.