Assessing biophysical, socio-economic and governance conditions for a sustainable use of non-conventional water resources in a Mediterranean agricultural watershed

Climate change is affecting water availability in the Mediterranean. The agriculture sector, accounting for the largest share of water withdrawals, is particularly vulnerable to dry spells and droughts increasing the risks for the socio-economic development of Mediterranean rural communities. Despite being often disregarded, the use of Non-Conventional Waters (NCW) can represent a sustainable and effective way to increase water availability and support agricultural production. In Central Italy, a traditional NCW is water harvesting through Small Agricultural Reservoirs (SmARs), which are receiving renewed interest to support emergency irrigation of high value productions, like wine and olive oil. Within the AG-WaMED project (funded PRIMA S2), we analyse the barriers and drivers associated with the implementation and management of existing and new SmARs, considering hydrological, socio-economic, and governance aspects through a participatory approach in Val d’Orcia, Tuscany Region. A Living Lab was established following the Responsible Research and Innovation Roadmap© methodology to engage local stakeholders through 4 participatory workshops and interviews to assess the current challenges in the adoption of SmARs and to build a shared vision on their sustainable utilisation. In the first workshop, knowledge on the contextual biophysical, socio-economic and institutional conditions was co-created, highlighting data gaps, economic and normative issues, as well as a lack of collaboration between water management institutions. While the interest of local stakeholders on implementing SmARs is strong, normative, institutional and political barriers exist at higher institutional level, i.e., district and national, mostly associated with environmental protection. The second workshop served to present the preliminary results of the agro-hydrological and socio-economic modelling and to gain feedback on input data, scenarios building and on additional analysis to be conducted. The last two workshops led to the preparation of the final version of Integrated Watershed Management Plan synthesizing the evidence generated by the project  and identifying leverage points for the use of SmARs. Proposed actions included in the plan are promoting water sharing between farms and multipurpose use of SmARs’ water (e.g. fire extinction), the reuse of treated effluents from constructed wetlands as an additional irrigation NCW source and a clarification of each water management institution’s responsibilities. Through the Val d’Orcia case study, we demonstrated how conducting a multi-dimensional and participatory assessment of NCW is crucial to reveal the root causes of their limited adoption and identify systemic solutions for their sustainable uptake. 

This research was carried out within the AG-WaMED project, funded by the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area Programme (PRIMA), an Art.185 initiative supported and funded under Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Grant Agreement Number No. [Italy: 391 del 20/10/2022, Egypt: 45878, Tunisia: 0005874-004-18-2022-3, Greece: ΓΓP21-0474657, Spain: PCI2022-132929, Algeria: N° 04/PRIMA_section 2/2021].

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