Climate change and water resources: The needs and constraints to adapt

Global demand for water resources is increasing at a staggering rate, indeed in just the last decades the rate of demand for water has doubled that of population growth. Agriculture remains the largest global consumer of water resources and accounts for around 70% of all global freshwater withdrawals, the majority of which is used for irrigation. Climate change will exacerbate both the problem of water scarcity and increase the risk of water pollution as variations in precipitation and temperature patterns can have extreme knock-on effects to local hydro-geological cycles. Climate change threatens the already precarious situation of rural Mediterranean areas that are facing a forecasted increase in future demand for irrigated farmland. This paper concerns the adoption of innovations in the agricultural irrigation sector, specifically addressing this issue in a Mediterranean region, Campania, where the majority of agriculture is irrigated and highly dependent on water availability. In the Campania region there have been several initiatives/projects finalized at promoting irrigation advisory services to farmers in order to foster a more efficient use of water resources. Despite the wealth of scientific knowledge available, the diffusion of these innovative systems is still poor. The objectives of the paper are, therefore, to identify, firstly, the perception of climate change among farmers, if there are adaptive actions already in place, and, finally, to identify the barriers to the wider adoption of the advisory services available. Using a participatory approach, it is shown that the use of integrated tools, which direct farmers towards more sustainable irrigation practices and provide water authorities with support for irrigation scheduling, could help to bring the interests of water users (farmers) and water authorities more into line with one another and meet both economic and environmental sustainability goals.