Final report on the water & crop allocation model

Abstract

The general objective of the MADFORWATER project is to develop an integrated set of technological and management instruments for the enhancement of wastewater treatment, treated wastewater reuse for irrigation and water efficiency in agriculture, with the final aim to reduce water vulnerability in selected basins in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. In particular, Work Package 3 “Adaptation of technologies for efficient water management and treated wastewater reuse in agriculture” aims to investigate several technological and non-technological solutions to enhance the use of treated waste water as alternative source of water for the irrigation sector, and to adapt them to the local contexts of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. Among the non–technological solutions, in Task 3.3 an agro physical (yield and water balance) - economic integrated model for land and water use optimization has been built and calibrated in the three case studies area of MADFORWATER, which are: the irrigated farming system in the Kafr-El- Sheikh Region in Egypt, the citrus farming system in Souss-Massa region in Morocco and the Nabeul Governorate in Tunisia. This deliverable presents the integrated model by describing the objective function to be maximized and the numerous physical (water resources availability, land use and climate change), technological, socio-economic (production costs, labour, prices) and water policy (pricing, licensing) constraints to be considered. In addition, the main outputs to be estimated have been identified, and the needed data to run the model that have been collected and used to calibrate it for the three case studies areas are also presented.