Climate Change Impact on Agriculture and Irrigation Network

Abstract

In the last century, impacts of climate change phenomenon and its consequences such as changes in temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, and amount of available water have been observed in various aspects of human life, especially in agricultural sector. In the agricultural sector, performance of irrigation networks is known as one of the important and effective factors on crop yield and development of sustainable agriculture. These networks can be affected by climate change because the irrigation networks are designed based on the climatic variables and crop pattern of considered region. In this chapter, sprinkler irrigation network of Bilesavar, located in the north of Iran, is considered as study area in order to investigate the effects of climate change on climatic variables. Moreover, according to existing agro-industry in the study area, the impacts of climate change are investigated on available crop pattern in order to specify conditions in the region in terms of maintaining sustainable agriculture. Since the most irrigation systems are designed based on the water requirement of crop pattern and water delivery based on farmer demand in the required pressure and discharge, the performance of irrigation network are evaluated in terms of equity and adequacy indices. Eventually, the adaptation strategies to climate change will be discussed for maintaining performance, stability of pressurized irrigation system, productivity improvement, and an increase in efficiency.