[en] In arid and semiarid areas in the world, including the Mediterranean region, groundwater has been widely and intensively used for irrigation over the last few decades. Practical as well as economic reasons make its use much more preferable, as compared to surface water, especially to individual farmers. Yet, this rapid and largely uncontrolled expansion in groundwater exploitation, which stimulated the socioeconomic development of numerous rural communities, has produced many negative impacts on aquifer degradation and environmental deterioration. The most common remedy to such problems is the application of specific groundwater management policies that can simultaneously meet socioeconomic and environmental protection goals. In this sense, the paper introduces a methodology for an optimal management of irrigation water, by specifically exploring the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of spatially allocated water conservation measures at the watershed level. The analysis is conducted by developing a multi-criteria decision-making framework, consisting of three distinct models: a hydrogeological, an optimization, and a multi-criteria one, which appraises the results of the other two. The proposed methodology is presented through a case study at a rural Greek watershed, in which groundwater is the sole water source for an intensively practiced agriculture. A system of water use quotas is the resource conservation policy instrument that is examined under a decision-making approach. Results show that some specifically designed and spatially non-uniform quota allocation schemes can meet in an optimum way the relevant criteria.

[es] Las aguas subterr&aacute;neas se han usado intensivamente en las regiones &aacute;ridas y semi&aacute;ridas del planeta, incluyendo el Mediterr&aacute;neo. Hay razones econ&oacute;micas y pr&aacute;cticas que las hacen preferibles a las aguas superficiales, especialmente para agricultores individuales. Sin embargo esto ha conducido a una expansi&oacute;n incontrolada del uso de aguas subterr&aacute;neas que ha estimulado el desarrollo de muchas comunidades rurales, pero que ha producido impactos negativos como degradaci&oacute;n en acu&iacute;feros y deterioro ambiental. El remedio m&aacute;s com&uacute;n para estos problemas es la aplicaci&oacute;n de pol&iacute;ticas de gesti&oacute;n de aguas subterr&aacute;neas que busque satisfacer simult&aacute;neamente los objetivos ambientales y socioecon&oacute;micos. Este trabajo introduce una metodolog&iacute;a explorando los impactos ambientales y socioecon&oacute;micos de una asignaci&oacute;n de recursos a nivel de acu&iacute;fero. El an&aacute;lisis se hace desarrollando un esquema multicriterio consistente en tres modelos: hidrogeol&oacute;gico, optimizaci&oacute;n, y funci&oacute;n multicriterio, que eval&uacute;a los resultados de los otros dos. La propuesta se aplica a un estudio del caso de un acu&iacute;fero rural en Grecia, en el cual el agua subterr&aacute;nea es el &uacute;nico recurso disponible para una agricultura intensiva. El instrumento utilizado para la pol&iacute;tica de conservaci&oacute;n es la asignaci&oacute;n de cuotas. Los resultados muestran que unas cuotas dise&ntilde;adas espec&iacute;ficamente y repartidas espacialmente de manera no-uniforme pueden servir para alcanzar los objetivos dise&ntilde;ados.