The impact of the EU Water Framework Directive on irrigated agriculture in Italy: the case of the North-East fruit district

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to evaluate the sustainability of irrigated agriculture under Water Framework Directive (60/2000) and Agenda 2000. The methodology relies on scenario analysis combined to farm level multicriteria mathematical programming. The methodology is applied to the case study of fruit farming in Northern Italy. The research shows that water pricing can improve irrigation efficiency, but the impact of water policy is strongly affected by agricultural policy scenarios. In order to make water policies more socially sound, it is necessary to consider a broader range of impacts and to provide a higher co-ordination between policy goals.