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Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture Water Management: Application of an Integrated Hydrological-Economic Modelling Tool in a Semi-Arid Region

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Agricultural Cooperative Management and Policy

Part of the book series: Cooperative Management ((COMA))

Abstract

An integrated hydrological-economic modelling tool—applied to the Apulia region (southern Italy)—is proposed to define water balance components and water use in the agricultural sector. The hydrological model allows assessing the crop irrigation requirements and the water availability, expressed in terms of river flow, groundwater recharge and abstraction, while the integration with the economic model allows simulating the real farmers’ decision process in response to any changes both in the constraints and in the boundary conditions. The tool provides a comprehensive information framework including water balance components, crop irrigation requirements, farmers’ choices in terms of land use and irrigation techniques, economic results (costs and incomes), and environmental impacts. Climate, land cover and soil datasets have been implemented as thematic maps into a GIS-based model, and integrated with the main economic parameters at the farm and crop level. Future scenarios of climate change have been simulated and their impacts on water balance taken into account. The aim of the results is optimizing the use of water resources and addressing the policies for an efficient water management under severe drought conditions that are likely to occur in the region according to climate change projections.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Eto is the evapotranspiration rate from a reference surface, a hypothetical grass reference crop with specific characteristics, not short of water. In the present study, it has been calculated using the modified version of the Hargreaves–Samani equation (Razieia and Pereira 2013):

    $$ {\text{ETo}} = 0.0135 \cdot k_{Rs} \cdot \frac{Ra}{\lambda }\sqrt {\left( {T_{\hbox{max} } - T_{\hbox{min} } } \right)} \cdot \left( {T + 17.8} \right) $$
    (11.7)

    where Ra is the extraterrestrial radiation, and \( \lambda \) is the latent heat of vaporization (MJ kg-1) for the mean air temperature T (°C), that is commonly assumed equal to 2.45 MJ kg-1. 0.0135 is a factor for conversion from American to the international system of units and kRs is the radiation adjustment coefficient, commonly equal to 0.17 (Samani 2004).

  2. 2.

    A global high-resolution model is a tool used for modelling climate on a global scale.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the French Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing, who funded this research in the framework of the CLIMAWARE project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, CIHEAM-IAMB, Via Ceglie 9, 70010, Valenzano, Bari, Italy

    A. Scardigno, D. D’Agostino & N. Lamaddalena

  2. School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield Water Science Institute (CWSI), Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, UK

    D. El Chami

Authors
  1. A. Scardigno
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  2. D. D’Agostino
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  3. D. El Chami
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  4. N. Lamaddalena
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Correspondence to A. Scardigno .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece

    Constantin Zopounidis

  2. Department of Marketing, Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Nikos Kalogeras

  3. School of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Konstadinos Mattas

  4. Center for Entrepreneurship, Nyenrode Business University, Breukelen, The Netherlands

    Gert van Dijk

  5. Business Economics & Management, Mediterrean Agronomic Inst. of Chania, Chania, Greece

    George Baourakis

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Scardigno, A., D’Agostino, D., El Chami, D., Lamaddalena, N. (2014). Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture Water Management: Application of an Integrated Hydrological-Economic Modelling Tool in a Semi-Arid Region. In: Zopounidis, C., Kalogeras, N., Mattas, K., van Dijk, G., Baourakis, G. (eds) Agricultural Cooperative Management and Policy. Cooperative Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06635-6_11

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