Water Quantity and Quality Issues in Mediterranean Agriculture - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 60

Portugal and Greece, because of the large share of water extractions used in irrigation.
However, pressure on water resources is much greater in Spain, Italy and Turkey, where
the acreage under irrigation is very large, with a combined water demand exceeding
80.000 hm 3 (Table 1). Irrigation development in these three countries has been driven by
heavy, sustained public investments in waterworks to store, transport and distribute water
to irrigation fields.

Table 1. European countries with high levels of water use for irrigation (2001)

Total water extractions (hm 3 ) Irrigation water (hm 3 ) Country Irrigated land (1000 ha)

France 33,500 2,200 4,800

Germany 40,400 490 620

Greece 8,900 1,450 7,700

Hungary 5,600 210 500

Italy 56,200 2,700 25,850

Poland 11,600 100 1,030

Portugal 9,900 650 8,770

Spain 37,700 3,650 24,600

United Kingdom 15,900 110 1,900

Bulgaria 5,800 800 870

Romania 7,300 2,670 1,020

Turkey 39,800 4,500 31,000

Total Europe 291,900 21,170 109,470

Source : EEA (2005), INE (2005), IFEN (2005).

Another aspect to be considered in the case of Italy and Spain is the development of
groundwater extraction in the second half of the twentieth century, driven by the falling
costs of pumping technologies in areas with high-profit irrigated crops. In contrast to the
large collective irrigation systems, these private groundwater extractions are largely
outside the control of the water administration.
In Italy, pervasive aquifer overdraft and water quality problems exist in the Po basin,
Romagna and Puglia, and in the coastal plains of Campania, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia.
Highly profitable fruit and vegetable production, based on individual pumping from
aquifers, takes place mainly in the Po basin and in Emilia-Romagna. In these regions, the
problem is not so much water scarcity as water quality. Surprisingly, fruit and vegetable
production has not developed in the south of Italy, largely because traditional marketing
channels cannot be restructured, preventing investments by farmers. Irrigation in the
south of Italy depends on collective systems with low-value crops. In Sicily, irrigation is
based on individual aquifer pumping, with an unprofitable citrus sector in need of
modernisation.
In Spain, the most severe water scarcity and quality problems are found in the Júcar,
Segura and Sur basins in south-eastern Spain. A dual situation holds for irrigation water
resources in Spain. The irrigation districts of inland Spain are based on collective surface
irrigation systems and low profit crops, and the degradation of water resources is
moderate. The reason is that basin authorities regulate water extractions, and fluvial
ecosystems are protected by the enforcement of minimum flows. High-profit crops, such
as fruits and vegetables, concentrate in the Mediterranean coastal areas, which rely on
individual pumping from aquifers. There is a lack of effective control on aquifer
extractions, both on the number of legal and illegal wells and on the volume of water
extracted. Decades of water resource mismanagement have created pervasive pressures
on water media, resulting in severe scarcity and degradation of water resources.