Sustainable Irrigation Water Management – Romanian Legal Framework

In Romania, due to weather conditions, irrigation is of utmost importance for the normal development of crops. The infrastructure serving the irrigation systems, mostly designed in the period of command economy, has been adapted to the new land operation structure resulting from the process of land restitution to former owners in our country, which led to excessive fragmentation of agricultural and forestry holdings. The restructuring of the maintenance and utilization modality of the irrigation infrastructure is based on numerous and complex legal provisions, under continuous dynamics. The implementation of legal provisions continues to be quite a difficult task, under the background of the lack of real support measures for farmers, for which irrigation represents an input ensuring optimum development conditions for crops, reliable and relatively stable yields over the years, as well as the increase of competitiveness on the produce market. In this context, the paper intends to analyze the legislative framework that regulates the activity in the Romanian irrigation sector and highlights the main normative acts that lie at the basis of the new forms of irrigation system infrastructure management, as well as of the organization forms of water users. The analysis is made at sectoral level and is particularized for the irrigation system from Cazasu-Brăila Terrace.