Irrigation Sustainability in the Land Use/Soil System in South Italy: Results from a GIS Simplified Approach and Future Methodological Developments - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 247

2.3. Irrigation infrastructure investments and water costs
Data on water costs (as well as the information related to irrigation networks, and
related areas, nominal CWR and irrigation techniques) has been collected on the
66 consortia (Land Reclamation and Irrigation) surveys, based on the Q2 SIGRIA
questionnaire. Data are updated to 1997.
Water cost definition in South Italy is rarely based on the real crop consumption. This
because of the scarce diffusion of water meters, and the non-profitability of water use in
agriculture (farmers cannot pay the real water cost because is not economically
sustainable). The cost is fixed on the basis of a fixed tariff per year/hectare, plus in some
cases variable cost per crop type (on which a standard CWR is fixed). The unitary (per
hectare) water tariff is based on the recover of both running and labour costs of the
consortia. A significant difference in water costs depends on the relative relevance of
energy costs, due to the quota of raised water in the total distributed volumes.
48/66 consortia have costs related to rising hydraulic waterworks. The irrigation scheme
investments are not included into the unitary water cost, because in Italy they are totally
financed by the State, as well as the extraordinary maintenance costs. Mostly of the water
cost data collected on the consortia referred to a "#￿￿(￿￿"#￿￿￿

only on nine consortia). In 13 cases the water cost is reconstructed (per interpolation with
the regional available data, and taking into account the presence of water raising
hydraulic waterworks). In Tables 9 and 10 (section 3), the water costs, both at consortium
and region level, are listed. Significant differences in the unitary costs between consortia
of the same region, generally due to the energy costs for water raising, make the average
regional value not representative.
In the water cost definition the annual public founds (generally at regional level and
for extraordinary maintenance costs), and the cost per hectare of the irrigation
infrastructures (both at consortium and farm irrigation waterworks level) are not taken
into consideration. But the unitary cost of the irrigation infrastructures has been used to
analyse the efficiency of the investments. From the graphic in Figure 5 and from the
Tables 9 and 10, it's possible to see the difference between the area equipped with
irrigation networks and the related irrigated area.
This significant difference is mainly due to a structural insufficient water availability
to irrigate all the equipped area. In second order, 20-25 % of this difference is due to the
normal rotation/crop shifts inside a Comprensorio . In some cases the irrigated areas are
larger than the equipped one. This is principally due to the private underground water
utilisation.
The infrastructures investments, both public and private, concern not only the yearly
irrigated area, but all the area equipped with pipelines, and consequently the on-farm field
water distribution equipment. The following analysis of the Irrigation Infrastructures
Investments (III) shows the average cost per hectare/year of the joined public (IIIpub.:
adduction and distribution pipelines, plus waterworks nodes) and private (IIIpriv.: rolls
and sprinkler - III s - or micro-irrigation tools - III i ) investments at Italian level 5 ):

III s = IIIpub/ha + IIIpriv. s = 400 "#￿)￿*￿"# = 797 "#

III i = IIIpub/ha + IIIpriv. i = 400 "#￿)￿ 788 "# = 1188 "# .

5.

Both data are extracted from specialised project technical guidelines and refer to the yearly
amortisation cost, based on the depreciation time of the investments: 30-40 years for pipelines;
12-15 years for water field distribution tools.