Final report on the water & crop allocation model

The data set includes collected and generated data used to upgrade the integrated hydro-agro-economic model developed in MADFORWATER WP3 to use it as a decision support tool (DST) for defining basin-scale strategies for water & land management in agriculture that integrates water reuse / irrigation technologies and related economic instruments, in order to improve the irrigation efficiency and enhance the treated WW reuse in agriculture. The DST aims at identifying the best management strategies by simulating different scenarios and it has been applied to the three case study areas of MADFORWATER: the irrigated farming system in the Kafr-El- Sheikh Region in Egypt, the citrus farming system in Souss-Massa region in Morocco and the permanent irrigated farming in the Nabeul Governorate in Tunisia. For each simulated scenario, the proposed model allows to identify optimal farmers’ choices related to cropping patterns and agro-techniques. The model also allows to estimate the effects of such choices on water consumption, water distribution among crops, land use changes and farmer income. In the simulated scenarios, the tool considers the impacts of irrigation technologies, increased water availability from wastewater reuse, and regulatory and economic instruments on the socio-economic and environmental systems. Simulated data predict the behavior of the tested innovative irrigation technologies and economic instruments. The data set contains also the elaboration of sustainable water & land management strategies in agriculture for the three case study areas of MADFORWATER. Each proposed strategy includes the identification and analysis of feasible and operational regulatory and economic instruments aimed at enhancing water reuse and the implementation of the efficient irrigation technologies developed in WP3. The strategies are delivered in the form of a report and are based upon qualitative data from policy and literature review, quantitative data from public data sources and collected by local teams, data collected during three fieldwork missions carried out in the region of Nabeul (Tunisia), qualitative information gathered in the MADFORWATER project’s stakeholder consultation workshops, and on results from the model-based Decision Support Tool (DST) developed in the project. Moreover, this data set includes the results of questionnaires and answer sheets provided by expert and stakeholder interviewed during MADFORWATER project for establishing integrated water & land management strategies and for evaluating the suitability of identified measures to overcome country specific barriers for the implementation of the proposed strategies. Potential users for this data include: (i) policy-makers or other decision-makers involved in water management and planning or agricultural policy development; (ii) researchers and companies active in the fields of treated wastewater reuse, water resources management, irrigation and agricultural and natural resource economics.

This dataset includes MADFORWATER Task 3.3 data, that were used for the development, application and calibration of an integrated agro-economic model with hydrology and water parameters for optimizing farm income, cropping pattern and water allocation in the three case studies area of MADFORWATER project. The case study areas are: the irrigated farming system in the Kafr-El-Sheikh Region (Egypt), the citrus farming system in Souss-Mass region (Morocco), and the annual and permanent irrigated farming in the Nabeul Governorate (Tunisia). In particular, the dataset includes data on: cultivated and irrigated surface cropping patterns, irrigation requirements and schedules, water availability and water consumption, crop characteristics (yields, prices and production costs), economic performance (farm income, labor use, etc.), performance indicator of irrigation technologies. The data scale is referred to the 3 selected basins, where the integrated technologies and strategies were tested and implemented. The integrated model validated and tested was used in other MADFORWATER tasks, such as those developed in WP5, to develop water & land management strategies for an optimal exploitation of the irrigation technologies developed WP3, and for the assessment of the impact of economic instruments for improving irrigation efficiency and for enhancing wastewater reuse in agriculture. Potential users for this dataset include: (i) policy-makers or other decision-makers involved in water management and planning or agricultural policy development; (ii) researchers and companies active in the fields of treated wastewater (TWW) reuse, water resources management, irrigation and agricultural and natural resource economics.

The impact of land use- and climate change on the managed eco-geomorphic balance in the Alps

Water Accounting Plus for Water Resources Reporting and River Basin Planning

علاوه بر تغییر‌اقلیم، تغییر‌کاربری‌اراضی به عنوان یک عامل جانبی اثرات مهمی بر سیلاب دارد. لذا پیش-بینی اثر این دو پارامتر بر وضعیت سیلاب دهه‌های آتی، راهگشای مقابله با این پدیده خواهد بود. هدف از مطالعه حاضر پیش‌بینی وضعیت هیدرولوژیکی حوزه آبخیز اسکندری در دهه آتی تحت اثر تغییر‌اقلیم و تغییر‌کاربری‌اراضی می‌باشد. جهت بررسی تغییرات اقلیمی دهه 2020، برونداد مدل HadCM3 تحت سناریوهای A2 و B1 توسط مدل LARS-WG ریزمقیاس گردید. پس از بررسی تغییرات کاربری-اراضی گذشته، دو سناریو جهت پیش‌بینی تغییرات آن در آینده طراحی شد. در انتها با تغییر هایتوگراف بارش و کاربری‌اراضی در مدلHEC-HMS که برای دوره گذشته کالیبره و اعتبارسنجی شده، اثر تغییر اقلیم و کاربری اراضی بر سیلاب منطقه مطالعاتی مورد بررسی قرار گرفته شد. نتایج نشان دهنده افزایش 2/7 تا 9/10 درصدی بارش متوسط سالانه دهه 2020 می‌باشد. افزایش توأمان دمای حداقل و حداکثر منطقه مطالعاتی در تمامی ماه‌ها موجب افزایش 82/0 تا 02/1 درجه سانتی‌گرادی دمای متوسط سالانه خواهد شد. افزایش دبی اوج و حجم سیلاب در ماه‌های مارس، اکتبر و فوریه و کاهش آن در ماه آوریل پیش بینی شده است. به طوری که در صورت تغییر‌کاربری‌اراضی همراه با تغییر‌اقلیم این افزایش شدیدتر خواهد بود.

Agricultural development plays an important role in the economies of the Mediterranean African Countries. Food demand is increasing in the Mediterranean African Countries and consumption patterns are changing. The countries face common challenges in their strategy to improve food security. The most significant challenges are a rapid population growth, urbanisation, dependency on rainfed agriculture with fluctuating yields, water scarcity, increased water demands, and challenges in water quality. Water scarcity has reached a critical point in the region, and the dependency on rainfall makes the Mediterranean African Countries extra vulnerable to climate changes. The Mediterranean African Countries offers plenty of opportunities for agricultural development: Availability of arable land, a temperate Mediterranean climate with year-round production possibilities, and a growing consumer market. A number of different efforts had been made in the past to quantify the Water Stress and Water Vulnerability in the past. Within this study, the 2016 AWDO framework had been used to allow a more consistent comparison of information both with previous and forthcoming international studies. Water Security and Water Vulnerability are considered as interrelated terms, where the one is the inverse of the other. Water Security had however gained over the recent decades a more prominent standing in the international community or donors, scientists, and policy makers. Depicting Water Security leads inevitably to the question, “security for whom”? The 2016 AWDO framework was developed within the Asian Water Development Outlook to offer a consistent approach for the Household Water Security, the Economic Water Security, the Urban Water Security, the Environmental Water Security and the Resilience to Water Related Disasters, referred to as the five key dimensions. By this the framework follows the classical People, Planet, and Profit paradigm as being applied in determining the sustainable development while adding a special focus on the urban situation and water risks. The full AWDO 2016 framework requires a rather large amount of data. Concentrating on the dimension of the Economic Water Security offers instead a good trade off, allowing to reduce the number of input data while at the same time providing a sufficient diversity in the consideration of other sectors. In this view, the Economic Water Security as defined in the 2016 AWDO framework has been used to determine relevant aspects for the Water Security in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. Water Stress is considered as the ratio of Total Withdrawal over Total Renewable Freshwater Resources. A nested framework had been applied to depict first the Water Stress and other key information on the water resource availability for all river basins in Tunisia and Morocco as well as for the different irrigation areas in Egypt. The related results had been then aggregated at national scale in order to calculate the Economic Water Security Index at national scale under the use of further socio-economic statistics. This aggregation had been necessary as the requested socio-economic background information could not been provided at the scale of river basins (Morocco, Tunisia) or irrigation areas in Egypt. In order to depict possible changes as a result of climate change and an increase in consumption, climate model ensemble runs from the CORDEX data base have been used to elaborate future aspects on the availability of water resources on the scale of catchments and in the case of Egypt on the irrigation areas instead. The results of this analysis are suited to provide a detailed insight on spatial variations of Water Stress. There is a high variability of rainfall in the coastal areas of Morocco, distinct north south variations of water availability in Tunisia, and a comparable uniform situation in Egypt because of distributing the Nile water in irrigation channels up to the Nile river delta. The score of the 2016 AWDO Economic Water Security is not affected by weighting factors and the results of the study allow hence a comparison amongst the countries. Additionally, the results underline possible pathways to use selected indicators of the AWDO framework as so called anchor indicators and to route relevant insights across the scales. Future effort should be spent to investigate further the possible effects from the aggregation process and to which extend the framework is suited to reflect pilots for introducing wastewater adequately. For determining the wastewater reuse potentials in irrigation, different maps have been elaborated for Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. As a result, priority areas are highlighted, where the close vicinity of wastewater production and existing of irrigated areas would favour interventions to implement wastewater reuse schemes. The findings of this study indicate the added value of applying elements from the 2016 AWDO Framework to allow a systematic reflection and comparison of key information to characterise water stress and Water Security.

The present deliverable report is related to Task 1.4 of the MADFORWATER project. The aim of the current report is double: (1) To define a framework for the development and assessment of integrated water & land management strategies (IWLMS) at basin level. This will be subsequently implemented in WP5 and WP6 of the MADFORWATER project. (2) To assess water security on a scale lower than the national level (as it was done in Task 1.2 of the MADFORWATER project) in order to provide a better understanding of the current water management practices and water vulnerabilities of the MADFORWATER selected basins: Souss-Massa basin in Morocco, Cap-Bon and Miliane basin in Tunisia, and the North-Eastern Nile Delta sub-basin in Egypt. It became apparent, during the execution of the MADFORWATER project, the need to handle a stronger consistency of indicators and information across different scales. In this view, Deliverable 1.4 focused on a systematic analysis to understand how the impact of potential local measures in the field of wastewater reuse could be assessed at different scales. Results were then used to derivate the assessment framework accordingly.

This dataset includes a review of and compilation of water policies and management approaches and of the use of economic instruments in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. Special attention is paid to the adoption of the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), such as the consideration of equity and efficiency issues and the introduction of economic principles in water management. The dataset includes information at the country level sourced from official data sources, public studies and previous research works. An overview of the main water management instruments at disposal for policy makers is included, along with a description of the current state of those instruments in the Mediterranean countries and an assessment of the most suitable ones for tackling the detected challenges. Moreover, for each target country within MADFORWATER project (Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco), a holistic assessment of the legal and institutional background, and the economic and policy instruments that are currently in place has been collected. Finally, the dataset includes a description of the potential needs and gaps detected in terms of the design and implementation for water management policies and economic instruments in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.

An alternative strategy for saving limited water resources is using treated wastewater (TWW) originating from wastewater treatment plants. However, using TWW can influence soil properties owing to its characteristics compared to conventional water resources. Therefore, assessing the effect of TWW on soil properties and soil water infiltration is crucial to maintain sustainable use of TWW and to increase the water use efficiency of the precious irrigation water. Moreover, several studies were carried out to assess the performance of infiltration models. However, few studies evaluate infiltration models under the use of treated wastewater. Therefore, this study aims to assess the effect of TWW irrigation on soil properties after 2 and 5 years and to evaluate five classical infiltration models with field data collected from soil irrigated by treated wastewater for their capability in predicting soil water infiltration. This study revealed that using TWW for irrigation affects significantly on soil properties after 2 and 5 years. The soil irrigated with TWW had significantly higher electrical conductivity, organic matter, sodium adsorption ratio, cation exchange capacity, and lower soil bulk density compared to control. The basic infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration decreased significantly compared to control (60.84, 14.04, and 8.42 mm hr−1 and 140 mm, 72 mm, and 62 mm for control, 2, and 5 years’ treatments, respectively). The performance of the infiltration models proposed by Philip, Horton, Kostiakov, Modified Kostiakov, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service was evaluated with consideration of mean error, root mean square error, model efficiency, and Willmott’s index. Horton model had the lowest mean error (0.0008) and Philip model had the lowest root mean square error (0.1700) while Natural Resources Conservation Service had the highest values (0.0433 and 0.5898) for both mean error and root mean square error, respectively. Moreover, Philip model had the highest values of model efficiency and Willmott’s index, 0.9994 and 0.9998, respectively, whereas Horton model had the lowest values for the same indices, 0.9869 and 0.9967, respectively. Philip model followed by Modified Kostiakov model were the most efficient models in predicting cumulative infiltration, while Natural Resources Conservation Service model was the least predictable model.

The use of treated wastewater (TWW) for irrigation has gained global attention since it reduces pressure on groundwater (GW) and surface water. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of TWW on agronomic, photosynthetic, stomatal, and nutritional characteristics of barley plants. The experiment with barley was established on two bands: one band was irrigated with GW and the other with TWW. The evaluation was performed 25, 40, 60, 90, and 115 days after sowing (DAS). Results showed that irrigation with TWW increased (p < 0.01) grain yield by 54.3% and forage yield by 39.4% compared to GW irrigation. In addition, it increased plant height (PH) (p = 0.013), chlorophyll concentration index (CCI) (p = 0.006), and leaf area index (LAI) (p = 0.002). TWW also produced a positive effect (p < 0.05) in all the photosynthetic efficiency parameters evaluated. Barley plants irrigated with TWW had lower stomatal density (SD) and area (SA) (p < 0.001) than plants irrigated with GW. Plants irrigated with TWW had a higher P concentration (p < 0.05) in stems and roots and K concentration in leaves than plants irrigated with GW. We concluded that the use of TWW induced important biochemical, physiological, and agronomic changes in barley plants. Hence, the use of TWW may be a sustainable alternative for barley production in arid and semi-arid regions. This study was part of a government project, which aimed to develop a new metropolitan irrigation district with TWW. This study may contribute to the sustainability of water resources and agricultural practices in northern Mexico.

The MADFORWATER project aims to developing an integrated set of technological and management instruments for the enhancement of wastewater treatment, treated wastewater reuse for irrigation, and water efficiency in agriculture. MADFORWATER focuses its activities on selected hydrological basins located in 3 Mediterranean-African countries (MACs): Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. These countries are representative of the Mediterranean-African region in relation to their population (74% of the region’s inhabitants), GDP (64%), produced WW (88%), rate of WW treatment (50%), and hydrological characteristics. The selected countries are characterized by a relevant water scarcity: the annual renewable water resources are equal to 60% of the of 1000 m3 /y threshold for water-stressed areas, and just 7% of produced WW is currently reused.

This dataset includes a review of current international cooperation activities and international agreements in which the 3 target countries are involved in the field of water resources management at different levels: global initiatives, such as United Nations; Euro-Mediterranean, such as the Union for the Mediterranean; and agreements with neighboring African countries. It will include a review of the status of international agreed goals, in order to identify the priorities for agenda at the basis of international cooperation agreements in the field of water efficiency in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. In relation to the need for agreements with neighboring African countries, specific attention will be dedicated to Egypt/Sudan agreements on the Nile river, the Tunisia/Algeria agreements on the Medjerda basin and the Tunisia/Algeria and Tunisia/Libya agreements on the North-western Sahara Aquifer System. The information provided refers to the supra-national and national scale including a review of international agreements and initiatives in which the selected countries are involved. Collected information will be derived from international organizations, public sources, public reports and previous research. The dataset will be used in T1.2 for the identification of water vulnerabilities associated to lacks of international cooperation, in T5.2 and T5.3 for the identification of regulatory and economic instruments, and in T6.2 for the elaboration of policy recommendations to support the adoption of the MADFORWATER technologies and integrated water and land management strategies. Other potential users out of the project include decision-makers involved in water and land management and researchers.

Use of groundwater and reclaimed water for agricultural irrigation: Farmers’ practices and attitudes and related environmental and health risks

The Dandora Estate Sewage Treatment Works (DESTW) in Ruai, Nairobi County discharges approximately 80,000 m 3 /day of treated wastewater (TWW) into the Nairobi River without any planned option for use. There is also no policy guideline for use of TWW in Kenya. Yet, some people still use it directly or indirectly for their various livelihoods and in unsustainable ways (unplanned, unmanaged and unregulated). This could result in a number of risks, including public health, agronomic and environmental risks. This study investigated factors influencing the adoption of the TWW use among the communities in seven estates ( Sewage/IDP, Gituamba, Kamunyonge, Katworo, Bondeni, Dan Bull and By-pass ) that are close to the DESTW, despite the prevailing scenario. Cross-sectional survey design was adopted in the study where semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 360 households who were selected using simple random sampling from the seven estates/strata. Raw data were analysed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences [version 20] software for both descriptive statistics (percentages and frequencies) and inferential statistics (Odds Ratio, and Wald χ 2 ) for the prediction of adoption of TWW (dependent variable) using the independent variables. A multivariate logistic regression model identified gender (Wald χ 2 (1) = 5.31, p = .021), main occupation in general (Wald χ 2 (7) = 21.06, p =.004), farming [Wald χ 2 (1) =5.31, p =.021], dependency on wastewater (Wald χ 2 (1) = 40.59, p ˂ .000) and knowledge of organization regulating use of TWW (Wald χ 2 (2) = 6.76, p =.034) as statistically significant predictors of adoption of TWW use in Ruai. In the absence of a policy guideline for use of TWW in Kenya, the findings of the study provide requisite baseline data useful in formulating an appropriate policy and regulations for wastewater reuse schemes. Keywords: Adoption, Treated wastewater (TWW), livelihoods, Predictors, Logistic regression DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-6-07 Publication date: June 30 th 2020

Water scarcity is a problem that currently affects a large part of the world's population. The manufacture of concrete involves the consumption of large quantities of drinking water, as well as a high consumption of natural resources used as raw materials in its manufacture. Solutions need to be found to mitigate the environmental impact caused by the manufacture of this material.In this study, the use of two types of treated wastewater (TWw) at application ratios of 0 %, 50 % and 100 % was evaluated as an alternative to the use of drinking water (DW) in the production of concrete. At the same time, the substitution of natural aggregates with 50 % recycled aggregates (RA) was also studied. To test the possible use of TWw and RA in concrete production, the mechanical and durability properties were evaluated.It was found that the partial or total use of TWw that fulfilled some given chemical properties requirements in the manufacture of concrete did not influence the final mechanical and durability properties. The combination of TWw and RA in concrete manufacturing resulted in similar properties to those of concrete manufactured with DW and RA for 50 % TWw application values. However, the combined use of TWw and RA at high substitution ratios led to a deterioration of concrete durability, increased absorption and carbonation depth.