Evaluating the feasibility of water sharing as a drought risk management tool for irrigated agriculture

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorChengot, Rishma
dc.contributor.authorKnox, Jerry W.
dc.contributor.authorHolman, Ian P.
dc.date.accessioned2021-02-09T17:48:02Z
dc.date.available2021-02-09T17:48:02Z
dc.date.issued2021-01-30
dc.description.abstractDroughts can exert significant pressure on regional water resources resulting in abstraction constraints for irrigated agriculture with consequences for productivity and revenue. While water trading can support more efficient water allocation, high transactional costs and delays in approvals often restrict its wider uptake among users. Collaborative water sharing is an alternative approach to formal water trading that has received much less regulatory and industry attention. This study assessed how the potential benefits of water sharing to reduce water resources risks in agriculture are affected by both drought severity and the spatial scale of water-sharing agreements. The research focused on an intensively farmed lowland catchment in Eastern England, a known hot-spot for irrigation intensity and recurrent abstraction pressures. The benefits of water sharing were modelled at four spatial scales: (i) individual licence (with no water sharing), (ii) tributary water sharing among small farmer groups (iii) sub-catchment and (iv) catchment scale. The benefits of water sharing were evaluated based on the modelled reductions in the probability of an irrigation deficit occurring (reducing drought risks) and reduced licensed ‘headroom’ (spare capacity redeployed for more equitable allocation). The potential benefits of water sharing were found to increase with scale, but its impact was limited at high levels of drought severity due to regulatory drought management controls. The broader implications for water sharing to mitigate drought impacts, the barriers to wider uptake and the environmental consequences are discusseden_UK
dc.identifier.citationChengot R, Knox JW, Holman IP. (2021) Evaluating the feasibility of water sharing as a drought risk management tool for irrigated agriculture. Sustainability, Volume 13, Issue 3, January 2021, Article number 1456en_UK
dc.identifier.issn2071-1050
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3390/su13031456
dc.identifier.urihttp://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/16321
dc.language.isoenen_UK
dc.publisherMDPIen_UK
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.subjectwater resourcesen_UK
dc.subjectirrigation deficiten_UK
dc.subjectfarm managementen_UK
dc.subjectcatchmenten_UK
dc.titleEvaluating the feasibility of water sharing as a drought risk management tool for irrigated agricultureen_UK
dc.typeArticleen_UK

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Evaluating_the_feasibility_of_water_sharing_as_a_drought_risk_management-2021.pdf
Size:
1.4 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.63 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Staff publications (SWEE)