scholarly journals Innovation Issues in Water, Agriculture and Food

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria do Rosário Cameira ◽  
Luís Santos Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Management ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Water Productivity ◽  
Irrigation Scheduling ◽  
Irrigated Agriculture ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Agriculture And Food ◽  
The Impact

The main challenge faced by agriculture is to produce enough food for a continued increase in population, however in the context of ever-growing competition for water and land, climate change, droughts and anthropic water scarcity, and less-participatory water governance. Such a context implies innovative issues in agricultural water management and practices, at both the field and the system or the basin scales, mainly in irrigation to cope with water scarcity, environmental friendliness, and rural society welfare. Therefore, this special issue was set to present and discuss recent achievements in water, agriculture, and food nexus at different scales, thus to promote sustainable development of irrigated agriculture and to develop integrated approaches to water and food. Papers cover various domains including: (a) evapotranspiration and crop water use; (b) improving water management in irrigated agriculture, particularly irrigation scheduling; (c) adaptation of agricultural systems to enhance water use and water productivity to face water scarcity and climate change; (d) improving irrigation systems design and management adopting multi-criteria and risk approaches; (e) ensuring sustainable management for anthropic ecosystems favoring safe and high-quality food production, as well as the conservation of natural ecosystems; (f) assessing the impact of water scarcity and, mainly, droughts; (g) conservation of water quality resources, namely by preventing contamination with nitrates; (h) use of modern mapping technologies and remote sensing information; and (i) fostering a participative and inclusive governance of water for food security and population welfare.

scholarly journals Implementing Sustainable Irrigation in Water-Scarce Regions under the Impact of Climate Change

Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios Nikolaou ◽  
Damianos Neocleous ◽  
Anastasis Christou ◽  
Evangelini Kitta ◽  
Nikolaos Katsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Water Productivity ◽  
Irrigation Management ◽  
Irrigated Agriculture ◽  
Cultivation Systems ◽  
Protected Cultivation ◽  
Water Scarce ◽  
Sustainable Irrigation ◽  
The Impact

The sustainability of irrigated agriculture is threatening due to adverse climate change, given future projections that every one in four people on Earth might be suffering from extreme water scarcity by the year 2025. Pressurized irrigation systems and appropriate irrigation schedules can increase water productivity (i.e., product yield per unit volume of water consumed by the crop) and reduce the evaporative or system loss of water as opposed to traditional surface irrigation methods. However, in water-scarce countries, irrigation management frequently becomes a complex task. Deficit irrigation and the use of non-conventional water resources (e.g., wastewater, brackish groundwater) has been adopted in many cases as part of a climate change mitigation measures to tackle the water poverty issue. Protected cultivation systems such as greenhouses or screenhouses equipped with artificial intelligence systems present another sustainable option for improving water productivity and may help to alleviate water scarcity in these countries. This article presents a comprehensive review of the literature, which deals with sustainable irrigation for open-field and protected cultivation systems under the impact of climatic change in vulnerable areas, including the Mediterranean region.

scholarly journals An Overview of Water Markets in Southern Africa: An Option for Water Management in Times of Scarcity

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greenwell Matchaya ◽  
Luxon Nhamo ◽  
Sibusiso Nhlengethwa ◽  
Charles Nhemachena
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Management ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Imperfect Competition ◽  
Water Markets ◽  
Water Transfers ◽  
The Impact

Southern Africa faces acute water scarcity challenges due to drought recurrence, degradation of surface water resources, and the increasing demand of water from agriculture, which has to meet the growing food demands of an increasing population. These stressors require innovative solutions that ensure the sustainability of water resources, without which the consequences could be dire for a region exposed to a host of vulnerabilities, including climate change. This review outlines the role of water markets in water management in times of water scarcity, highlighting the drivers of water markets in southern Africa, such as water scarcity, transboundary nature of water resources, and their uneven distribution. The review further discusses the role of water markets in climate change adaptation. Related institutional and legal frameworks as well as water allocation mechanisms are explored, aiming at improving water markets governance. The impact of adaptation to new water regimes in the face of scarcity are assessed by considering characteristics of current markets as related to future opportunities. In a diverse region such as southern Africa with unevenly distributed water resources, advancing the concept of water markets could play an important role in mitigating water scarcity challenges and promoting regional integration through coordinated transboundary water transfers. The emergence of water markets in the region is influenced by the continued depletion of water resources, which is resulting in the adoption of innovative water marketing strategies, such as inter-farm sharing or farm joint venture systems and inter-basin and intra-basin water transfers. As the concept is new in the region, it still has challenges that include general market inefficiencies, high transaction costs, market information asymmetries, imperfect competition, and weak or absent robust institutional frameworks that can facilitate market development.

scholarly journals Changes in water demands under adaptation actions to climate change in an irrigation district

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waldo Ojeda-Bustamante ◽  
Ronald E. Ontiveros-Capurata ◽  
Jorge Flores-Velázquez ◽  
Mauro Iñiguez-Covarrubias
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Irrigation Scheduling ◽  
Irrigation District ◽  
Irrigated Agriculture ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Baseline Scenario ◽  
Water Demands ◽  
Adaptation Action ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Planting Season

Climate change will affect the water balance of irrigated agriculture. Therefore, farmers and irrigation managers should consider adapting to new scenarios. Changes in water demands in a Mexican irrigation district were studied using an irrigation-scheduling model. The impact on water demands of two potential adaptation actions, adjusting planting season and using longer-season varieties (LV), was estimated and compared with a baseline scenario. Two cropping plans (wet and dry) for the last 15 water years were considered. Cumulative and daily irrigation demands were estimated for each agricultural season and each adaptation action. The reference period (1961–1990) and three future climate projections (2011–2040, 2041–2070, 2071–2098) under A1B scenario were used. Results indicated that without adaptation water demands will decrease as temperatures increase and season lengths will shorten. However, as farmers respond with adaptation actions to maintain actual yields, water demand can be higher than non-adaptation action. The impacts of climate change on water demands depend on the adopted adaptation actions and have a greater effect on peak and cumulative demands. The water demands increased by 2.4% when LV were used and 16.3% when this is combined with adjusting planting season. Thus, adaptation actions should be chosen carefully to minimize future agricultural risk.

scholarly journals Geoinformation Technologies in Support of Environmental Hazards Monitoring under Climate Change: An Extensive Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Andreas Tsatsaris ◽  
Kleomenis Kalogeropoulos ◽  
Nikolaos Stathopoulos ◽  
Panagiota Louka ◽  
Konstantinos Tsanakas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Monitoring ◽  
Environmental Hazards ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Spatial Data Analysis ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
Geospatial Technologies ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
The Impact

Human activities and climate change constitute the contemporary catalyst for natural processes and their impacts, i.e., geo-environmental hazards. Globally, natural catastrophic phenomena and hazards, such as drought, soil erosion, quantitative and qualitative degradation of groundwater, frost, flooding, sea level rise, etc., are intensified by anthropogenic factors. Thus, they present rapid increase in intensity, frequency of occurrence, spatial density, and significant spread of the areas of occurrence. The impact of these phenomena is devastating to human life and to global economies, private holdings, infrastructure, etc., while in a wider context it has a very negative effect on the social, environmental, and economic status of the affected region. Geospatial technologies including Geographic Information Systems, Remote Sensing—Earth Observation as well as related spatial data analysis tools, models, databases, contribute nowadays significantly in predicting, preventing, researching, addressing, rehabilitating, and managing these phenomena and their effects. This review attempts to mark the most devastating geo-hazards from the view of environmental monitoring, covering the state of the art in the use of geospatial technologies in that respect. It also defines the main challenge of this new era which is nothing more than the fictitious exploitation of the information produced by the environmental monitoring so that the necessary policies are taken in the direction of a sustainable future. The review highlights the potential and increasing added value of geographic information as a means to support environmental monitoring in the face of climate change. The growth in geographic information seems to be rapidly accelerated due to the technological and scientific developments that will continue with exponential progress in the years to come. Nonetheless, as it is also highlighted in this review continuous monitoring of the environment is subject to an interdisciplinary approach and contains an amount of actions that cover both the development of natural phenomena and their catastrophic effects mostly due to climate change.

Communicating water-related climate change hazards to local stakeholders

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Müller ◽  
Petra Döll
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Management ◽  
Climate Change Impact ◽  
Biosphere Reserve ◽  
Hydrological Models ◽  
Model Ensemble ◽  
Hydrological Hazards ◽  
Local Stakeholders ◽  
Change Impact ◽  
The Impact

<p>Due to climate change, the water cycle is changing which requires to adapt water management in many regions. The transdisciplinary project KlimaRhön aims at assessing water-related risks and developing adaptation measures in water management in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Rhön in Central Germany. One of the challenges is to inform local stakeholders about hydrological hazards in in the biosphere reserve, which has an area of only 2433 km² and for which no regional hydrological simulations are available. To overcome the lack of local simulations of the impact of climate change on water resources, existing simulations by a number of global hydrological models (GHMs) were evaluated for the study area. While the coarse model resolution of 0.5°x0.5° (55 km x 55 km at the equator) is certainly problematic for the small study area, the advantage is that both the uncertainty of climate simulations and hydrological models can be taken into account to provide a best estimate of future hazards and their (large) uncertainties. This is different from most local hydrological climate change impact assessments, where only one hydrological model is used, which leads to an underestimation of future uncertainty as different hydrological models translate climatic changes differently into hydrological changes and, for example, mostly do not take into account the effect of changing atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> on evapotranspiration and thus runoff.   </p><p>The global climate change impact simulations were performed in a consistent manner by various international modeling groups following a protocol developed by ISIMIP (ISIMIP 2b, www.isimip.org); the simulation results are freely available for download. We processed, analyzed and visualized the results of the multi-model ensemble, which consists of eight GHMs driven by the bias-adjusted output of four general circulation models. The ensemble of potential changes of total runoff and groundwater recharge were calculated for two 30-year future periods relative to a reference period, analyzing annual and seasonal means as well as interannual variability. Moreover, the two representative concentration pathways RCP 2.6 and 8.5 were chosen to inform stakeholders about two possible courses of anthropogenic emissions.</p><p>To communicate the results to local stakeholders effectively, the way to present modeling results and their uncertainty is crucial. The visualization and textual/oral presentation should not be overwhelming but comprehensive, comprehensible and engaging. It should help the stakeholder to understand the likelihood of particular hazards that can be derived from multi-model ensemble projections. In this contribution, we present the communication approach we applied during a stakeholder workshop as well as its evaluation by the stakeholders.</p>

scholarly journals A simulation study on the effect of climate change on crop water use and chill unit accumulation

2017 ◽  
Vol 113 (7/8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abiodun A. Ogundeji ◽  
Henry Jordaan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Irrigation System ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Crop Water ◽  
Crop Water Use ◽  
Chill Unit ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Impact

Climate change and its impact on already scarce water resources are of global importance, but even more so for water scarce countries. Apart from the effect of climate change on water supply, the chill unit requirement of deciduous fruit crops is also expected to be affected. Although research on crop water use has been undertaken, researchers have not taken the future climate into consideration. They also have focused on increasing temperatures but failed to relate temperature to chill unit accumulation, especially in South Africa. With a view of helping farmers to adapt to climate change, in this study we provide information that will assist farmers in their decision-making process for adaptation and in the selection of appropriate cultivars of deciduous fruits. Crop water use and chill unit requirements are modelled for the present and future climate. Results show that, irrespective of the irrigation system employed, climate change has led to increases in crop water use. Water use with the drip irrigation system was lower than with sprinkler irrigation as a result of efficiency differences in the irrigation technologies. It was also confirmed that the accumulated chill units will decrease in the future as a consequence of climate change. In order to remain in production, farmers need to adapt to climate change stress by putting in place water resources and crop management plans. Thus, producers must be furnished with a variety of adaptation or management strategies to overcome the impact of climate change.

Green Infrastructure Development in Sustainable Water Resources Management System

2015 ◽  
Vol 747 ◽  
pp. 127-131
Author(s):  
Quintarina Uniaty
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Management System ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources Management ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Green City

The main challenge in the twenty-first century is to work towards a more resilient urban world and sustainable. In the context of a global urban strategy, endurance is the attention to the capacity of urban systems, including the natural environment, the built environment, social and economic elements; to be able to manage change, to learn from a difficult situation and be in a position to rise from urban problems. Globally, the townsfolk face a water crisis within the next ten years, as the impact of climate change in exhaust emissions will affect the quality of air, land and water; which will ultimately reduce the quality of the environment. Sustainability questioned whether certain aspects of the day-to-day activities, and the systems of community life, can be ongoing into the futureonce again from the standpoint of social, economic and environmental. Eco city is a phrase that is often used in ecological issues raised in the concept of sustainable urban planning and green city embodiment of the challenges ahead in sustainable economic development, and the future development of smart green city. The convergence of technology and environmental issues has changed the world economy that offers a green city promising future - a city that appreciates natural heritage and offer all parties involved. This paper will discuss green infrastructure as water management control system in urban development concepts that contribute to build a sustainable green city management.Key words : green infrastructure, water management system.

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