Adoption of water saving practices in the reion of west macedonia

The use of irrigation water for agricultural production requires innovative and sustainable research and an appropriate transfer of water saving technologies. The main aim of this paper is to explore the irrigating behaviour of farmers examining factors affecting their decision to adopt novel water saving practices. In order to achieve the above aim both summary statistics and multivariate methodologies are employed. In particular, a two-step cluster analysis was used to explore the different adoption levels of water saving practices and a categorical regression model was estimated to explain this variation. Data were collected through a survey addressing 400 irrigators, carried out in 2008 in a typical Greek rural area. Results show that although respondents have already adopted several water saving practices the current irrigated agriculture cannot be sustained in a sustainable manner.

In this dissertation, we explore the potential of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in an original context, the small agriculture of Developing Countries (DCs). Our goal is to confront an emerging technology with a concrete problem of world-wide dimensions, the sustainability of farming for small land-holders living in conditions of water scarcity. Based on a survey about information needs, we design a series of precise use cases, provide system design, implementation and deployment guidelines for the technology, present a toolkit including an original interface to wireless sensors for non-specialists, and bring to the attention of the research community the lessons we learned in the process. In the first part, we present the environmental challenges faced by the developing world and identify relevant applications of environmental monitoring in this context. Then, we proceed with a review of the technology of environmental monitoring in the broad context of agriculture and formally present the opportunity represented by WSNs. Finally we show how this can be applied to addressing a crucial problem of DCs, namely rural poverty. The second part of the dissertation is devoted to the collaborative design of a decision-support tool for marginal agriculture using wireless sensor networks. We first describe a survey that was made in 2004 in three villages of Karnataka, India. The results highlighted the potential that environment-related information has for the improvement of farming strategies in the face of highly variable conditions, in particular for risk management strategies (choice of crop varieties, sowing and harvesting periods, prediction of pests and diseases, efficient use of irrigation water etc.). The results were used to identify potential use cases for an environmental monitoring system for agriculture, and to make crucial design decisions for this system. At this point, we present our toolkit in detail and proceed with its assessment. Deployment issues are covered in detail, as they are critical for the success of such a system. The results of our field deployments, both in Switzerland and in India, highlighted the potential of the technology and demonstrated its applicability in the field. However, the direct use of this technology by the farmers themselves did not foster the expected participation of the population. This made it difficult to develop the intended decision-support system. The third part of this dissertation addresses the lessons learned and their consequences for upcoming experiments and deployments. We take the following position: Currently, the deployment of WSN technology in developing regions is more likely to be effective if it targets scientists and technical personnel as users, rather than the farmers themselves. We base this finding on the lessons learned from the COMMON-Sense system deployment and the results of an extensive user experiment with agriculture scientists, which is extensively described. We also took steps to make the deployment and maintenance of wireless sensors easier. Their limited resources, indeed, make them a challenging tool to handle in the field. In particular, they lack a proper display, which makes them difficult to deploy and to manage, once they are deployed. Accordingly, we present Sensor-Tune, a light-weight deployment and maintenance support tool for wireless sensor networks. This tool is based on an auditory user interface using sonification. Sonification refers to the use of audio signals (mostly non-speech) to convey information. We explore the potential of this approach, in particular how it allows users to overcome the inherent limitations of visual interfaces. We then justify our design choices, and present typical WSN applications where sonification can be particularly useful. Finally, we present the prototype that we built, and we describe a user experiment that we conducted in early 2008, which is the first reported attempt to put a multi-hop wireless sensor network deployment in the hands of non-specialists. In a conclusive part, we go beyond the mere technology and technology use, by advocating an original use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the context of developing countries. We believe our demand-driven approach for the design of appropriate ICT tools that are targeted at the resource poor to be relatively new. In order to go beyond a pure technocratic approach, we adopted an iterative, participatory methodology. This work represents the first reported attempt to design and deploy a wireless sensor network in the rural area of a developing country. In this context, the author hopes that the lessons learned and the results obtained in the field, with both their limitations and their promises, can inspire future work on environmental sustainability in developing regions.

This survey study was carried out to identify the adoption, discontinuance and non adoption of sprinkler irrigation systems among farmers who were trained to apply those in Ardabil Province of Iran. Farmers were divided into 3 groups as: adopters, abandoners after adoption and non-adopters. A sample of 160 farmers, including 20 adopters, 80 abandoners and 60 non-adopters were randomly selected. Results show that no significant differences among three studied groups exist regarding access to agricultural research and extension service centers. Adopters had lower farming experiences however, were more educated, having larger farm sizes including irrigated and rainfed lands, with more fragments and less distances among them. They were more informed about irrigation methods specially, sprinkler systems than the other two groups. Such awareness enabled them to solve problems occurred after installation of equipments in their farms. On the other hand, weakness of awareness had affected abandoners` decisions to reject the technology. Nevertheless, all of the respondents showed positive attitude towards optimum use of irrigation water. Significant relationships exist among contact with agricultural experts and extension agents as well as training programs of radio, TV and adoption behaviors. Meanwhile, differences among groups regarding ability to read written materials on irrigation were statistically significant. Overall, farmer’s reasons for adopting and non-adopting of sprinkler systems were classified. Key words: Water policy, water efficiency, water allocation, sprinkler irrigation.

AB Provision of irrigation has been thought to be crucial in improving the livelihoods of millions of tribals in Central belt of India, who are locked in perpetual poverty. Green Revolution Technology, which has been at the heart of Indiaٳ agricultural development, has more or less bypassed the tribal population. For one, irrigation infrastructure is inadequate in the tribal regions and again when irrigation infrastructure is made available, the tribals do not seem to make adequate use of them. Creating demand for irrigation among the tribal farmers seems to be most important challenge. It is in this backdrop that we undertook our case study in a tribal dominated block of Gujarat. Unlike the other tribal dominated areas Jharkhand and Chattisgarh), the tribals in our study area were third generation farmers and therefore they faced no cognitive barriers in adopting irrigated agriculture. They are also as skilled a farmer as any other, which is reflected by the fact that there are no discernable yield differences between a tribal and a non-tribal farmer. We studied four canal irrigation schemes, which have been all turned over to the farmers at the behest of AKRSP (I)ٳ intervention. All these four schemes are tribal dominated, some of them are completely so, others have a handful of non-tribal population. The schemes we studied were Pingot RBMC, Baldeva LBMC, Pingot LBMC and Issar Minor Irrigation scheme. Our results confirm that irrigated agriculture has brought about tremendous benefits to a tribal farmer in the form of yield increases, higher cropping intensity, lower out migration and higher wage rates within the village. The trajectory of change for a typical tribal farming has been from cultivating local paddy in Kharif and migrating in Rabi and summer to cultivating hybrid paddy in kharif and irrigated groundnut or moong in summer. Irrigated agriculture has become central to their livelihoods and this in part explains why Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) has been more or less successful here. However, the non-tribal farmers have benefited more from PIM than tribal farmers, because they shifted to very lucrative sugarcane farming. The non-tribals (Patels) have also played a significant role in these irrigation co-operatives in that they have provided the much needed ܤemonstration effectݠof profitability of irrigated agriculture. AKRSP (I)ٳ role as facilitator of PIM in Pingot RBMC and Baldeva LBMC has been acclaimed nationally. But we propose that the success of these two schemes lies in the creation of Pingot LBMC society, where tribal farmers came forward on their own and formed irrigation society to take over management of the canal system. The very fact that an all-tribal farmer group could successfully replicate PIM experiment in Gujarat that was started with Pingot RBMC and Baldeva LBMC is a proof enough for the success of PIM as a whole. We also propose that in the long term, the sustainability of PIM will depend on the overall profitability of irrigated agriculture and therefore efforts should be made to make farming a more profitable venture for the tribal farmers. Encouraging them to shift to highly lucrative crops such as sugarcane and orchard crops could perhaps make irrigated agriculture more profitable in future.

Some parts of the U.S. have strained or insufficient local water supplies to meet the demands of population, industry and agriculture located in the region. Some areas with insufficient water supply have long implemented measures to address the shortfall through transferring water from other basins. New York City obtains almost 97% of its water and Los Angeles over 90% from interbasin transfers (IBTs).<br>With climate change affecting precipitation and temperature patterns across the U.S., coupled with growth in population and the economy leading to changes in demand, planning for risks to water supplies is critical to ensuring continued supply of water for all U.S. regions. Assessment of areas of high and low water risk can provide insights into potential changes in availability for existing supply, and aid in decision making for mitigating forecasted risks to local water supply. Implementation of IBTs historically has been one approach for addressing water supply risks.<br>The overarching goal of this research was to examine the role of IBTs for water resource supply and management in the U.S. Specific objectives were as follows:<br>1. Quantify the number of IBTs that exist at a defined hydrologic unit code (HUC) level in the U.S. and examine the distribution of IBTs and potential causes associated with any observed clustering of IBTs. <br>2. Characterize and classify IBTs, and examine the development drivers for a subset of IBTs in the U.S through sampling in different climate regions of the U.S.<br>3. Examine the water risks in the U.S. by county, considering both current and future conditions and accounting for natural water importation through streams and rivers, and consider the role of IBTs in mitigating these risks.<br>As part of the first objective, the definition of what constitutes a “basin” was required to assess man-made transfers that cross those basin boundaries. There are several definitions utilized by different states, with no federal definition. The most recent inventory of IBTs was conducted by the USGS in 1985 and 1986 using the HUC4 level. To build a new inventory of IBTs in the U.S., the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) was utilized, combined with the Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD). Man-made transfers across basin boundaries at the HUC6 level were considered to be interbasin. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis showed that as of 2016 there were 2,161 IBTs crossing HUC6 boundaries in the U.S. These were located across the country, although over 50% of those identified were located in Florida, Texas or North Carolina. Some clustering of IBTs was observed in various states and analysis of the clustering suggested a variety of reasons for IBT construction, including population, drainage and agricultural factors. However, the flow volumes associated with the IBTs identified could not be evaluated due to a lack of available data at both the state and federal level.<br>The second objective expanded upon this analysis, examining a subset of 109 (5%) of the identified IBT reaches within the various climate regions of the U.S. To characterize and classify the IBTs each was labeled as being near irrigated agricultural land, near cities, or rural for those not near either cities or irrigated land. IBTs in proximity to both cities and irrigated agricultural lands were given the designation city+irrigated agriculture. Selection of IBTs for this analysis was based on the approximate proportional distribution of the total number of IBTs within each climate region and included representation of IBT clusters identified as part of the first objective. The results of the analysis showed that there have been four major drivers behind the construction of IBTs in the U.S.: irrigation for agriculture, municipal and industrial water supply, commercial shipping or navigation, and drainage or flood management. The most common factor for IBT construction has been to enable drainage or flood management. IBT development for agricultural needs has also been prevalent. The majority of IBTs examined were constructed between 1880 and 1980, with peaks in construction occurring between 1900-1910 and 1960-1970. The case studies examined showed that drivers of IBT development evolved through history, reflecting the changes in U.S. and regional economies, populations and needs.<br>To examine the risks associated with the U.S. water supply a new Water Risk Index (WRI) was developed, building upon and advancing a prior risk analysis developed by Roy et al. (2012). The Roy et al. work utilized risk factors that focused upon local precipitation, demand and evapotranspiration, without examining the natural flow of water between counties. To produce the WRI the analysis utilized the 2015 USGS Water Use Report data and projected water use in 2050, assuming only municipal and domestic water demand and thermoelectric power water withdrawal demand would change over time as per Roy et al. (2012). To calculate the flow volumes for each county the Water Supply Sustainability Index (WaSSI) developed by the USDA Forest Service (Sun, 2008) was used. The WaSSI model allowed for the analysis to include changes in climate and related hydrology as well as the evolving water demand. The WRI calculated water supply risk for each county in the contiguous U.S. The WRI calculation includes comparisons of water withdrawal to local flow volume, the drought susceptibility during summer for both the present and future, the projected growth in water demand, and the proportion of groundwater use relative to total water demand. This risk index provides a scaled value system that provides context to each individual risk factor included. The results of this showed that while some counties are regarded as high or very high risk, there are significantly fewer than those identified by the Roy et al. (2012) analysis. A maximum of 36 counties were identified as high or very high risk within the scenarios examined as part of the WRI analysis, in comparison to over 400 in the previous analysis. The highest risk areas are located in the west, with most counties determined to be at very high risk located in California. Most of the counties with negligible risk are located in Montana and Wyoming, as well as Colorado west of the continental divide.<br>This research provides insights into locations within the U.S. that may have high risks to their water supplies, and into the role that current or potential IBTs can have to mitigate those risks. In addition, the methods developed can help support planners to identify low risk locations to examine for their potential to support IBT water supply solutions while accounting for the downstream impacts such diversions may cause. To ensure that the U.S. maintains a consistent and secure water supply all options must be considered for their viability, including the potential for moving water from where it is plentiful to areas it is not.<br>

Water Accounting Plus for Water Resources Reporting and River Basin Planning

This thesis aims at measuring the impact of agricultural policy on water use and farms’ incomes in the northeast of the Syrian Arab Republic. The scope of the research is confined to the three governorates of Deir-Ezzour (DEG), Al-Rakka (RAK), and Al-Hassakeh (HAG). The choice of these governorates, that together form the Northeast of Syria, is due to their heavy reliance on policy regulated crops, which makes them relatively more sensitive to any policy reform. Moreover, the negative impact of the current policy on water balance is evident in the Northeast, especially in the area of Al-Khabour basin, located almost entirely in HAG. In the thesis, irrigated agriculture of the Northeast of Syria has been modelled by a set of representative farms, using the General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS). The representative farms’ programming models are calibrated on data on observed cropping patterns and water use of 2005. Then, the policy reforms that have occurred after 2005 are considered in the models by changing the values of the relevant policy parameters and new baseline results obtained, inclusive of the most recent implemented reforms. The comparison between the baseline results of 2005 and the post-reform baseline results show that the recent reform is expected to have a limited impact on water use and farm income. Predicted changes in water use are less than +5% on average, over the entire region, although they vary across the three governorates of the region, with negative change in Al-Hassakeh, and positive in Al-Rakka and Deir-Ezzour. On the other hand, changes in income levels and stability are more noticeable in the three governorates and are always positive. The changes in average income levels range from +15% in Deir-Ezzour to +3% in Al-Hassakeh. The impact on the stability of income is of the same magnitude in percent terms. It is of interest to note that the impact of the recent policy reforms, due to the stabilization of maize price, is greater on income stability than on average income levels in the three governorates. The next analysis has involved simulation of alternative policy scenarios, including introduction of modern irrigation technology, reform in the farm credit system, and stabilization of alternative crops’ prices. The simulations reveal interesting policy implications. They illustrate that adoption of modern irrigation techniques, even by all farms in the region, would not solve the water scarcity problem in Al-Khabour basin where there will still be a noticeable deficit. This is due to the still low efficiency of modern irrigation schemes in the current condition of the region, but also because our model predicts that water saved thanks to the adoption of modern irrigation schemes will allow expansion of irrigated land. In addition, the results show that decoupling access to official credit from strategic crops would have negligible effects on cropping patterns and, consequently, water use. Similar results come out if the subsidy currently linked to cotton irrigated from private wells would be decoupled. Of the various possible simulated policies, stabilizing cumin price would have the largest positive impact on water consumption, because of expanding cumin cultivation, which is a crop with irrigation requirements, at the expense of wheat and other winter crops. The thesis adds to the evidence that price policy is potentially the instrument that affects farmers’ decision the most. If effective in stabilizing price for water saving crops, this may be an important tool to combine farm welfare improvement with increased sustainability in water use.

مهمترین هدف برنامه‌ریزی و مدیریت آبیاری افزایش بهره‌وری و راندمان مصرف آب و در عین حال دارا بودن یک سامانه پایدار تولید است. به منظور بررسی تاثیر انواع خاک‌پوش بر کارایی مصرف آب، شاخص‌های رشدو عملکرد ذرت، پژوهشی به صورت طرح بلوک‌های کامل تصادفی با 6 تیمار و 3 تکرار در سال زراعی 93-94 در مزرعه پژوهشی دانشگاه شهرکرد انجام شد. تیمارها شامل شاهد (بدون پوشش)، پوشش پلاستیک شفاف، پلاستیک سیاه، گونی نخی کناف، گونی سفید و آبی بود. در طول فصل کشت، رطوبت خاک تا عمق توسعه موثر ریشه اندازه‌گیری و آبیاری‌ها بر اساس کمبود رطوبت خاک با تأمین نیاز آبی کامل تعیین و اعمال گردید. در طول فصل رشد نمونه‌برداری برای تعیین میزان ماده خشک برگ، ساقه و میزان آماس نسبی برگ انجام گرفت و در پایان فصل رشد نیز میزان حجم آب مصرفی، میزان دانه تولیدی، اندازه‏گیری و ثبت گردید. نتایج نشان دادکه خاک-پوش‌ها در تمام مراحل اندازه‏گیری تأثیر افزاینده بر محتوای نسبی آب برگ داشته‌اند که این می‌تواند ناشی از تأثیر آن‌ها بر حفظ رطوبت خاک باشد. خاک‌پوش پلاستیک شفاف بیشترین تأثیر را بر شاخص برداشت با مقدار 97/53 درصد داشت که این مقدار متناظر افزایش 32 درصد نسبت به تیمار شاهد بود. بیشترین و کمترین میزان کارایی مصرف آب به ترتیب مربوط به تیمار گونی‌سفید و شاهد با مقادیر 7/2 و 4/1 کیلوگرم وزن خشک دانه بر مترمکعب بدست آمدکه این معادل افزایش 93 درصد میزان کارایی مصرف آب می‌باشد. بنابراین خاک‌پوش گونی‌های سفید وآبی بیشترین تأثیر را بر حفظ رطوبت خاک و عملکرد محصول دارا بودند.

The pricing method mostly adopted by water authorities (WAs) supplying water for irrigation through surface irrigation networks is the flat rate. This scheme violate either the Water Framework Directive (WFD) Incentive Pricing Principle (IPP) and Polluter Pays Principles (PPP), not providing incentives for efficient water uses and disregarding differences in irrigation water use among farmers. The use of flat rates is justified by the fact that monitoring water uses is too costly and even not effective, as WAs operate in conditions of hidden information. Under such conditions, by being unable to monitor water use, farmers have an information advantage against the WA. This fact exposes the WA to suffer a ‘pricing failure’ if it decides to apply an incentive pricing strategy (tariffs proportional to the alleged water uses). Indeed, farmers might exploit their information advantage behaving in an opportunistic way withdrawing more water than declared and finally paying less than they should. This would undermine the effectiveness and the efficiency of the WA’s pricing strategies. Under these circumstances the thesis investigates the design of incentive pricing options through a principal-agent model under full and asymmetric information, in a way of modulating water tariffs with farms’ water supply costs by irrigation. In addition, the thesis illustrates how asymmetry of information and transaction costs drive the WA to propose a less efficient contract solution due the rent extraction needed to reveal farms’ private information and guaranteeing the implementation of the pricing strategy. The main conclusion arising from this research turns to be that; the implementation of a pricing strategy depends upon the context surrounding the irrigation network.

This paper studies the diffusion of greenhouse agriculture in a watershed in the northern uplands of Thailand by applying econometrics and agent‐based modeling in combination. Adoption has been rapid by farmers in the central valley of the watershed, while farmers at higher altitudes, lacking transferable land titles that could serve as mortgage collateral, have been unable to obtain loans for greenhouse investment. The objectives of the paper are both methodological and empirical. On the methodological side, it shows that econometrically estimated models of farm household behavior are useful to design and to parameterize an agent‐based model. On the empirical side, simulation results show that if mortgage collateral would not be required, then adoption in the upper part of the watershed could reach nearly 77% of farm households by 2020, as compared to about 36% under current conditions. Furthermore results suggest a significant increase in incomes related to the innovation and a substantially greater irrigation water use, especially in the central part. As bell pepper under greenhouses has replaced pesticide‐intensive chrysanthemum, it has declined average levels of pesticide use. Nevertheless, pesticide use is high and farmers are struggling to control pests, which raises questions about the long‐term sustainability of the innovation. Dans le présent article, nous avons analysé, à l'aide d'un modèle économétrique et d'un modèle multi‐agent, l'expansion de la culture en serre dans un bassin versant des hautes terres du Nord de la Thaïlande. Les agriculteurs de la vallée centrale du bassin versant ont adopté rapidement cette forme d'agriculture, tandis que les agriculteurs installés dans les hautes altitudes n’ont pu, faute de titres fonciers transférables pouvant servir de garantie, obtenir de prêts pour construire des serres. Les objectifs du présent article étaient à la fois méthodologiques et empiriques. Sur le plan méthodologique, notre étude a montré que les modèles de comportement des ménages agricoles estimés économétriquement sont utiles pour concevoir et paramétrer un modèle multi‐agent. Sur le plan empirique, les résultats de simulation ont montré que, si des garanties de prêt n’étaient pas exigées, 77 p. 100 des ménages agricoles adopteraient la culture en serre dans les hautes terres du bassin versant d'ici 2020, comparativement à environ 36 p. 100 dans les conditions actuelles. De nouveaux résultats ont indiqué que cette innovation ainsi qu’un usage accru de l'eau pour l'irrigation, particulièrement dans la partie centrale, pourraient générer une hausse substantielle des revenus. Depuis que la culture en serre du poivron vert a remplacé la culture du chrysanthème exigeante en pesticides, l'usage des pesticides a beaucoup diminué, mais demeure tout de même élevé. Les agriculteurs ont de la difficultéà lutter contre les ravageurs, ce qui soulève des questions sur la viabilitéà long terme de l'innovation.

This study aimed to analyse the extent to which land- and water-use rights enable/deter the productive use of irrigation water. Data was collected from 242 sampled smallholders in three study areas in KwaZulu-Natal. The findings indicate that the productive use of irrigation water is positively influenced by land- and water-use rights, with scheme committees being the first point of contact for smallholders when they need access to land and water. A provincial body of scheme committees is needed through which smallholders can capacitate each other in how they can improve access, appreciate the role of collective action and deal with challenges related to water, land and markets by applying their experiences. This body can be represented in policy formulation and aid in policy implementation. This paper shows that land and water policy alone cannot improve smallholder productivity, and that enhancing the productive use of irrigation water requires a holistic approach that considers the accessibility of input and output markets.

The "Dairy and Lucerne (Alfalfa) Adoption Program" of the Queensland Rural Water Use Efficiency Initiative (RWUEI) is targeting five major dairy and three major lucerne irrigation regions in the state with the objective to develop better irrigation water use efficiency (WUE) through the adoption of best management practices in irrigation. The major beneficiaries of the program will be industries, irrigators and local communities. The benefits will flow via two avenues: increased production and profit resulting from improved WUE and improved environmental health. As a added result, the work is likely to contribute to an improved public image of the dairy and lucerne industries. In each of the regions, WUE officers have established grower groups to assist in providing local input into the specific objectives of extension and demonstration activities. The groups also assist in developing grower's perceptions of ownership of the work. Extension activities are based around onfarm demonstration sites in each region where irrigation management techniques and hardware are showcased. A key theme of the program is monitoring and scheduling of water use. Due to vast distances covered by the project this has meant introducing new remote monitoring technologies to farmers. This is applied both to on-farm storage, pumping and distribution as well as to application methods and in-field management. Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 61, © 2003 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541

Water accounting for conjunctive groundwater and surface water irrigation sources: A case study in the middle Heihe River Basin of arid northwestern China

Irrigated agriculture has increased steadily in Syria over the last decades, almost doubling since 1985. This mounting pace has responded to the nation’s food security policy objectives to satisfy the food production needs of an increasing population that features one of the largest growth rates in the world, namely 3,50 percent in 1985 and still 3,39 percent in 2007. Total expenditures for irrigated agriculture accounted for almost 70 percent of all expenditures in agriculture. Sustainable irrigation water policies aimed at increasing the efficiency of water use in agriculture and at conserving water resources by reducing future consumption. The Euphrates River is 2.800 km long and its middle traverses a wide floodplain in Syria, where it is used extensively for irrigation, and the Euphrates Dam is 230 ft (70 m) high. The total estimated water use volume is about 15 billion m3. The Euphrates and Orontes basins account for about 50% and 20% of the water use respectively. About 701.634 ha has been irrigated by ground water in the year 1997. This area represents 60% of the total irrigated land in Syria It has been gradually increased from 30% during 1970 to 44% in 1980 and 49% in 1990. The Government projects extended on 349.820 hectare area, which includes large, medium and small scale farms. The small scale government project is under 2000 hectare, but large scale project over 20.000 hectare areas. The Syrian Government wants to ensure the food supply for sharply increasing population based on established governmental agricultural projects, as state-owned farms. Water balance for Syria indicates that most of the basins are in deficit. This will be exacerbated further especially in basins encompassing large urban areas and if the country’s population continues to grow at its current rate (about 3%) and water use efficiency is not increased effectively.

The present research by the use of discrete choice model (CM) has analysed the willingness to pay for satellite based of irrigation advisory services in an area of Italy characterized of intensive use of water for irrigation. One original aspect of this study concerns the case study where our work has been implemented. In fact, several studies that used CM have been implemented in agricultural areas and considered water resources management, but we do not fund studies concerning the irrigation advisory service (IAS), specially characterized by a i) highly innovative and technological value offering by the use of Earth Observation (EO) techniques for water saving. The innovative approach of this work was to understand and learn about the different expectations of farmers than consulting services to irrigation in an area of Italy where such services have achieved levels of excellence. The study was carried out in the Campania region in area of Italy covered by IAS called IRRISAT. In 2013, the service has provided support for three Irrigation and Land Reclamation Consortia (ILRC), with 669 farmers and extension of 55.03,57 hectares. Based on these considerations, the specific aims of this work has been i) to analyse the importance of technological innovation in the agricultural water management ii) to define throughout the use of choice experiment (CE) the preferences of the farmers regarding the main characteristic, attributes, of the IRRISAT, iii) to analyse marginal willingness to pay for this service. The main results of the research have confirmed that water is a primary asset for farms and the most important factor for agricultural production. Therefore, there is a clear need for greater use of tools and methodologies to account for water use in irrigation practice. The results have shown the general appreciation for IRRISAT and their willingness to pay for this service.