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Agricultural irrigation system is required to be designed economically and should be reliable with minimal suspension in watersupply. This study suggests a multi-criteria design approach for irrigation pipe network systems. A system reliability is suggestedas a second objective, which is defined as annual non-supplied volume of water by considering pipe failure. The non-suppliedwater is quantified based on the expected number of pipe failure and pipe repair time. A hydraulic simulator(EPANET) is linkedwith a heuristic-search optimization algorithm(Genetic Algorithm, GA) for least-cost system design. Once the least-cost design isdetermined, the system reliability is calculated for the obtained optimal design. In order to evaluate the relation between systemcost and water-supply reliability, three layouts(two branch- and a looped-networks) were suggested for least-cost design and reli-ability estimation. The application results showed that the multi-criteria design approach is superior than single-objective designscheme by providing decision makers with additional information to determine optimal designs.Key words : Agricultural irrigation system; Water distribution system; Optimization; System reliability