Evaluating Irrigation Efficiency with Performance Indicators: A Case Study of Citrus in the East of Spain

Lorena Parra,Bernat Roig-Merino,Herminia Puerto,Marta Botella-Campos,Jaime Lloret

doi:10.3390/agronomy10091359

Lorena Parra, Bernat Roig-Merino + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10091359

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Abstract

Improving water efficiency in farming systems is one of the major challenges of these decades. Water scarcity due to climate change, together with the increasing demand of food, is leading experts from around the world find appropriate indicators for water-use efficiency. In this paper we propose and test different indicators for service delivery performance, productive efficiency, and economic efficiency. Since the characteristics of the studied area and the citrus cropping system in the East of Spain are particular, we include in our analysis two other variables which are key to understanding the changes in the indicators: the obtained productivity, and the applied irrigation. The indicators and these two variables are tested with the information provided by farmers of citrus orchards belonging to an irrigation community from the East of Spain. The effect of different factors, such as cultivated varieties, type of farmer (professional or non-professional), or plantations’ size, are evaluated against the productivity and irrigation performance of the evaluated orchards. The effect of excess of irrigation on the indicators is also studied with the previous factors. Finally, an artificial intelligence system is used to predict productive efficiency of an orchard, based on the size and the water supply. Among the proposed indicators, the service delivery performance indicators came out to be the least useful and might provoke overirrigation due to the lack of accuracy of the data used for its calculation. The productive and economic efficiency indicators have been useful to illustrate the remarkable effect that excess of irrigation has on water efficiency, since a reduction of 66% of productive efficiency is found for some of the analysed varieties. On other cases, a reduction of 50% in economic efficiency is detected due to the excess of irrigation. Moreover, the excess of irrigation implied higher economic efficiency in only one of the evaluated varieties.

Highlights

Sustainable agriculture (SA) aims to produce long-term crops and livestock while minimising the effects on the environment [1]
We detail the results of the artificial neural network (ANN)
We focus on Nadorcott for the tangerines and Navelina for oranges, and their overall results

Summary

Introduction

Sustainable agriculture (SA) aims to produce long-term crops and livestock while minimising the effects on the environment [1]. Among the goals of this type of farming, conserving water and reducing the use of pesticides and fertilisers are at the top, but SA focuses on helping farmers improve their techniques and maintain the economic viability of farms [2]. Assessing sustainability indicators can be of great importance to help farmers increase their productivity while reducing economic investment. Water management is a fundamental part of the agricultural sector, especially for water-stressed areas like Spain, since more profitable crops often have higher water requirements [4]. Nowadays more than half of the final agricultural production in Spain is obtained in irrigated lands [5]. Sound irrigation management is needed to tackle water scarcity while increasing productivity in an efficient manner

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