Climate Change and Irrigation Water: Should the North/South Hierarchy of Impacts on Agricultural Systems Be Reconsidered?

• Published in: Environmental modeling & assessment Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 13 - 36
• Main Authors: Barberis, Delphine, Chiadmi, Ines, Humblot, Pierre, Jayet, Pierre-Alain, Lungarska, Anna, Ollier, Maxime
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-02-2021; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural economics; Agricultural equipment and supplies industry; Agricultural industry; Analysis; Applications of Mathematics; Climate change; Constraint modelling; Earth and Environmental Science; Economic analysis; Economic models; Economics and Finance; Environment; Farming systems; Global temperature changes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Irrigation; Irrigation water; Math. Appl. in Environmental Science; Mathematical Modeling and Industrial Mathematics; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Water; Water availability; Water demand; Water resources; Climate change; Agro-economic supply model; Water price; Irrigation water demand; Demande en eau d'irrigation; Changement climatique; Modèle d'offre agro-économique; Prix de l'eau
• ISSN: 1420-2026; 1573-2967
• DOI: 10.1007/s10666-020-09724-8

Pressures on resources and climate change are likely to strongly impact the availability of water, which directly affects agricultural systems. To estimate these impacts, we develop a prospective approach combining an agricultural supply side economic model and a crop model. We extend previous work by incorporating water resource constraints and apply our model to a large part of the French agricultural sector under three climate scenarios over 2010–2010. Results indicate that, at a given water price, potential change in irrigation water demand would differ strongly according to the region concerned and the scenario applied. In France as a whole, irrigation increases in all scenarios, by 60% under the intermediate scenario, by 40% under the least extreme scenario, and by 20% under the toughest scenario. Differentiating the northern and southern regions, the relative increase is more pronounced in the north, while demand in the south significantly increases under the intermediate scenario and decreases under the toughest scenario. When considering autonomous adaptation of farming systems to climate change, agricultural income in northern regions is likely to be negatively affected to a greater extent than in southern regions.