LAUSR

Because of water scarcity, improvement of water management has been gaining in importance. Agriculture is the largest water consumer, so improvement of irrigation networks is the priority. An automatic control system is one measure for achieving this goal. With the exception of automatic hydraulic structures, other automatic systems are new to Iranian irrigation networks, which make their selection a complicated task. In this paper, a dynamic system approach was used to investigate the interactions among automatic system components and the long‐term behaviour of irrigation networks. The conceptual model was developed and presented in a separate article. In this research, the quantified model is developed and verified for the Qazvin irrigation network (QIN). A data series of conveyance and distribution efficiency, and groundwater withdrawal, are used for verification using statistical indicators and extreme condition tests. The results show that the model simulates the system behaviour correctly. Sensitivity analysis shows that distribution and delivery management is the most effective parameter in irrigation network utility. Some improvement scenarios are tested. The results show that improving managerial structure has the greatest impact on network utility; in fact, other measures are not so useful, unless managerial structure is improved. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.