Inicio  /  Water  /  Vol: 8 Núm: 11 Par: 0 (2016)  /  Artículo
ARTÍCULO
TITULO

Perceptions of Present and Future Climate Change Impacts on Water Availability for Agricultural Systems in the Western Mediterranean Region

Thi Phuoc Lai Nguyen    
Laura Mula    
Raffaele Cortignani    
Giovanna Seddaiu    
Gabriele Dono    
Salvatore G.P. Virdis    
Massimiliano Pasqui    
Pier Paolo Roggero    

Resumen

Many Mediterranean countries have experienced water shortages during the last 20 years and future climate change projections foresee further pressure on water resources. This will have significant implications for irrigation water management in agricultural systems in the future. Through qualitative and quantitative empirical research methods carried out on a case study on four Mediterranean farming systems located in Oristano, Italy, we sought to understand the relationship between farmers? perceptions of climate change (i.e., increased temperature and decreased precipitation) and of present and future water availability for agriculture as forecasted by climatic and crop models. We also explored asymmetries between farmers? perceptions and present and future climate change and water scenarios as well as factors influencing perceptions. Our hypotheses were that farmers? perceptions are the main drivers of actual water management practices and that sustainable practices can emerge from learning spaces designed from the understanding of the gaps between perceptions and scientific evidences. Results showed that most farmers perceived that climate change is occurring or will occur in their area. They also perceived that there has been an increased temperature trend, but also increased precipitation. Therefore, they are convinced that they have and will have enough irrigation water for agriculture in the near future, while climate change projections foresee an increasing pressure on water resources in the Mediterranean region. Such results suggest the need for (i) irrigation management policies that take into account farmers? perceptions in order to promote virtuous behaviors and improve irrigation water use efficiency; (ii) new, well-designed learning spaces to improve the understanding on climate change expectations in the near future in order to support effective adaptive responses at the farm and catchment scales.

 Artículos similares

       
 
Alejandro Valencia-Arias, Diana María Arango-Botero, Sebastián Cardona-Acevedo, Sharon Soledad Paredes Delgado and Ada Gallegos    
The COVID-19 pandemic and the boom of fake news cluttering the internet have revealed the power of social media today. However, young people are not yet aware of their role in the digital age, even though they are the main users of social media. As a res... ver más
Revista: Informatics

 
Malinka Ivanova and Tsvetelina Petrova    
During the pandemic, universities were forced to convert their educational process online. Students had to adapt to new educational conditions and the proposed online environment. Now, we are back to the traditional blended learning environment and wish ... ver más
Revista: Informatics

 
Giuseppe Gibertini, Silvano Rezzonico, Marco Rossetti and Alex Zanotti    
The present paper describes a test campaign performed to investigate the noise footprint emitted by a helicopter in an idealised urban context, reproducing the approach to an elevated helipad. The test campaign was performed in Politecnico di Milano?s an... ver más
Revista: Aerospace

 
Alla Vinokhodova, Vadim Gushin, Polina Kuznetsova and Anna Yusupova    
Detection of the extent of common values in a cohesive space crew has become an important trend in modern space psychology. It is known from the works of Ch. Osgood that the semantic differential scale is a reliable way to obtain objective information on... ver más
Revista: Aerospace

 
Dirk H. R. Spennemann    
Cultural heritage management at the local government level relies on community participation, mainly interested stakeholders, in the identification, nomination and, in some jurisdictions, the co-evaluation of heritage assets. These are then ?listed,? i.e... ver más
Revista: Urban Science