IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v95y2008i8p973-983.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring regional irrigation water demand using typologies of farms and production units: An example from Tunisia

Author

Listed:
  • Poussin, J.C.
  • Imache, A.
  • Beji, R.
  • Le Grusse, P.
  • Benmihoub, A.

Abstract

Most methods used to predict irrigation water consumption at a regional scale are based on biophysical models and cropping patterns. Their aim is to provide accurate estimations of "water demand" that are useful for water resource management. However, in the case of free access to the water resource, for example pumping from a water table, it is only possible to prevent overexploitation by "managing" the demand for water, which thus needs to focus on farmers' choices and behavior. In this paper, we propose a framework to represent agricultural activities using typologies of farms and production units aggregated at a regional scale. The framework can be used to estimate consumption of irrigation water and of other inputs, as well as the production of outputs. The framework can also be used to evaluate the effects of technical, economic or institutional changes on farm income, and to predict the consequences of changes for farmers' choices at regional scale. We used this method in Central Tunisia to estimate irrigation water demand in 1999. We then simulated the changes that would occur if drip irrigation were adopted. The results of the simulation showed some savings in water and in labor, and, with fertigation, an increase in yields. Using drip irrigation would consequently enable farmers to extend the area of drip-irrigated land. We then simulated the widespread adoption of drip irrigation and the resulting extension of irrigated areas: the results showed no savings in water at the regional scale. These hypotheses were confirmed in 2005 using new typologies to estimate the new demand for irrigation water. We also simulated the effects of economic changes on farm incomes. A major increase in the cost of water affected a minority of farms, which consumed only 17% of total irrigation water, whereas a slight decrease in watermelon and melon prices affected a majority of farms, which consumed 78% of total irrigation water. Water demand management tools therefore need to focus on the effects of technical, economic, or institutional changes and on farmers' choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Poussin, J.C. & Imache, A. & Beji, R. & Le Grusse, P. & Benmihoub, A., 2008. "Exploring regional irrigation water demand using typologies of farms and production units: An example from Tunisia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(8), pages 973-983, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:95:y:2008:i:8:p:973-983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-3774(08)00088-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weatherhead, E. K. & Knox, J. W., 2000. "Predicting and mapping the future demand for irrigation water in England and Wales," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 203-218, March.
    2. Maton, L. & Leenhardt, D. & Goulard, M. & Bergez, J.-E., 2005. "Assessing the irrigation strategies over a wide geographical area from structural data about farming systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 293-311, December.
    3. Landais, E., 1998. "Modelling farm diversity: new approaches to typology building in France," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 505-527, December.
    4. Wichelns, Dennis, 2003. "Enhancing water policy discussions by including analysis of non-water inputs and farm-level constraints," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 93-103, September.
    5. Leenhardt, D. & Trouvat, J. -L. & Gonzales, G. & Perarnaud, V. & Prats, S. & Bergez, J. -E., 2004. "Estimating irrigation demand for water management on a regional scale: I. ADEAUMIS, a simulation platform based on bio-decisional modelling and spatial information," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 207-232, August.
    6. Gomez-Limon, Jose A. & Riesgo, Laura, 2004. "Irrigation water pricing: differential impacts on irrigated farms," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 47-66, July.
    7. Heinemann, A. B. & Hoogenboom, G. & de Faria, R. T., 2002. "Determination of spatial water requirements at county and regional levels using crop models and GIS: An example for the State of Parana, Brazil," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 177-196, January.
    8. Victoria, F.B. & Filho, J.S. Viegas & Pereira, L.S. & Teixeira, J.L. & Lanna, A.E., 2005. "Multi-scale modeling for water resources planning and management in rural basins," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 77(1-3), pages 4-20, August.
    9. Bartolini, F. & Bazzani, G.M. & Gallerani, V. & Raggi, M. & Viaggi, D., 2007. "The impact of water and agriculture policy scenarios on irrigated farming systems in Italy: An analysis based on farm level multi-attribute linear programming models," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-3), pages 90-114, March.
    10. Philippe Le Grusse & Hatem Belhouchette & Marjorie Le Bars & Gema Carmona & Jean Marie Attonaty, 2006. "Participative modelling to help collective decision-making in water allocation and nitrogen pollution: application to the case of the Aveyron-Lere Basin," International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(2/3), pages 247-271.
    11. Michel Tenenhaus & Forrest Young, 1985. "An analysis and synthesis of multiple correspondence analysis, optimal scaling, dual scaling, homogeneity analysis and other methods for quantifying categorical multivariate data," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 91-119, March.
    12. Kok Teo & T. Cheng & Xiaoqiang Cai & Xiaoqi Yang, 2005. "Preface," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 17-20, January.
    13. Mateos, Luciano & Lopez-Cortijo, Ignacio & Sagardoy, Juan A., 2002. "SIMIS: the FAO decision support system for irrigation scheme management," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 193-206, August.
    14. Robert Axelrod, 1997. "Advancing the Art of Simulation in the Social Sciences," Working Papers 97-05-048, Santa Fe Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rinaudo, Jean-Daniel & Maton, Laure & Terrason, Isabelle & Chazot, Sébastien & Richard-Ferroudji, Audrey & Caballero, Yvan, 2013. "Combining scenario workshops with modeling to assess future irrigation water demands," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 103-112.
    2. Blanco-Gutiérrez, Irene & Varela-Ortega, Consuelo & Flichman, Guillermo, 2011. "Cost-effectiveness of groundwater conservation measures: A multi-level analysis with policy implications," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(4), pages 639-652, February.
    3. Ivars Reinfelds, 2011. "Monitoring and Assessment of Surface Water Abstractions for Pasture Irrigation from Landsat Imagery: Bega–Bemboka River, NSW, Australia," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(9), pages 2319-2334, July.
    4. Lucie Clavel & Marie-Hélène Charron & Olivier Therond & Delphine Leenhardt, 2012. "A Modelling Solution for Developing and Evaluating Agricultural Land-Use Scenarios in Water Scarcity Contexts," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(9), pages 2625-2641, July.
    5. Rouault, Pierre & Courault, Dominique & Flamain, Fabrice & Pouget, Guillaume & Doussan, Claude & Lopez-Lozano, Raul & McCabe, Matthew & Debolini, Marta, 2024. "High-resolution satellite imagery to assess orchard characteristics impacting water use," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rinaudo, Jean-Daniel & Maton, Laure & Terrason, Isabelle & Chazot, Sébastien & Richard-Ferroudji, Audrey & Caballero, Yvan, 2013. "Combining scenario workshops with modeling to assess future irrigation water demands," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 103-112.
    2. Maton, L. & Leenhardt, D. & Goulard, M. & Bergez, J.-E., 2005. "Assessing the irrigation strategies over a wide geographical area from structural data about farming systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 293-311, December.
    3. Prakashan Veettil & Stijn Speelman & Guido Huylenbroeck, 2013. "Estimating the Impact of Water Pricing on Water Use Efficiency in Semi-arid Cropping System: An Application of Probabilistically Constrained Nonparametric Efficiency Analysis," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(1), pages 55-73, January.
    4. Gómez-Limón, José A. & Gutiérrez-Martín, Carlos & Riesgo, Laura, 2016. "Modeling at farm level: Positive Multi-Attribute Utility Programming," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 17-27.
    5. Balali, Hamid & Khalilian, Sadegh & Viaggi, Davide & Bartolini, Fabio & Ahmadian, Majid, 2011. "Groundwater balance and conservation under different water pricing and agricultural policy scenarios: A case study of the Hamadan-Bahar plain," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 863-872, March.
    6. Leenhardt, D. & Trouvat, J. -L. & Gonzales, G. & Perarnaud, V. & Prats, S. & Bergez, J. -E., 2004. "Estimating irrigation demand for water management on a regional scale: I. ADEAUMIS, a simulation platform based on bio-decisional modelling and spatial information," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 207-232, August.
    7. Humblot, Pierre & Jayet, Pierre-Alain & Petsakos, Athanasios, 2017. "Farm-level bio-economic modeling of water and nitrogen use: Calibrating yield response functions with limited data," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 47-60.
    8. Speelman, Stijn & Buysse, Jeroen & Farolfi, Stefano & Frija, Aymen & D'Haese, Marijke & D'Haese, Luc, 2009. "Estimating the impacts of water pricing on smallholder irrigators in North West Province, South Africa," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1560-1566, November.
    9. George HALKOS & Georgia GALANI, 2014. "Cost Effectiveness Analysis in Reducing Nutrient Loading in Baltic and Black Seas A Review," Journal of Advanced Research in Management, ASERS Publishing, vol. 5(1), pages 28-51.
    10. Monaco, Federica & Sali, Guido, 2018. "How water amounts and management options drive Irrigation Water Productivity of rice. A multivariate analysis based on field experiment data," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 47-57.
    11. Lorite, I.J. & Mateos, L. & Orgaz, F. & Fereres, E., 2007. "Assessing deficit irrigation strategies at the level of an irrigation district," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-3), pages 51-60, July.
    12. Li, Hongjun & Li, Jiazhen & Shen, Yanjun & Zhang, Xiying & Lei, Yuping, 2018. "Web-based irrigation decision support system with limited inputs for farmers," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 279-285.
    13. Barnaud, Cécile & Bousquet, François & Trebuil, Guy, 2008. "Multi-agent simulations to explore rules for rural credit in a highland farming community of Northern Thailand," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 615-627, July.
    14. Mouratiadou, Ioanna & Topp, Cairistiona & Moran, Dominic, 2008. "Modelling Agricultural Diffuse Pollution: CAP – WFD Interactions and Cost Effectiveness of Measures," 107th Seminar, January 30-February 1, 2008, Sevilla, Spain 6461, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Blanco-Gutiérrez, Irene & Varela-Ortega, Consuelo & Flichman, Guillermo, 2011. "Cost-effectiveness of groundwater conservation measures: A multi-level analysis with policy implications," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(4), pages 639-652, February.
    16. Iraizoz, Belen & Gorton, Matthew & Davidova, Sophia, 2007. "Segmenting farms for analysing agricultural trajectories: A case study of the Navarra region in Spain," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-3), pages 143-169, March.
    17. Moreno-Pérez, Olga M. & Arnalte-Alegre, Eladio & Ortiz-Miranda, Dionisio, 2011. "Breaking down the growth of family farms: A case study of an intensive Mediterranean agriculture," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(6), pages 500-511, July.
    18. Ficko, Andrej & Boncina, Andrej, 2013. "Probabilistic typology of management decision making in private forest properties," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 34-43.
    19. Matteo Richiardi, 2003. "The Promises and Perils of Agent-Based Computational Economics," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 29, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    20. Mariela González-Narváez & María José Fernández-Gómez & Susana Mendes & José-Luis Molina & Omar Ruiz-Barzola & Purificación Galindo-Villardón, 2021. "Study of Temporal Variations in Species–Environment Association through an Innovative Multivariate Method: MixSTATICO," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-25, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:95:y:2008:i:8:p:973-983. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.