The viability of irrigated systems in the Senegal River Valley is being brought into question today due to their under-utilization. We assume that their viability depends largely on the way their different components behave and interact. We therefore sought to examine in greater depth today's knowledge of the structure of these systems and activities performed within them. This led to the development of a multi-agent system model, a kind of virtual irrigated system, with a special focus on rules in use for access to credit, water allocation and cropping season assessment as well as organization and coordination of farmers. The purpose of this paper is to show how this kind of tool is relevant to the study of irrigated systems' viability. As an example it is used to examine the influence of existing social networks on the viability of irrigated systems.