Water Pricing for Agriculture between Cost Recovery and Water Conservation: Where do we Stand in France? - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 19

season and where irrigation needs are stochastic as irrigation is only a complement to
rain. Furthermore, these individual withdrawals that are made in rivers and aquifers,
imply often water conflicts between agriculture and environment during the summer
period, when river flows are low, or between agriculture and other uses such as drinking
water, when the aquifers are overexploited.

Table 1. Evolution of irrigated areas (ha) from 1970 to 2000

1970 1979 1988 2000

Irrigated area (ha) 538 537 800 533 1 146 988 1 575 625

Potential irrigated area (ha) 767 200 1 325 227 1 796 769 2 633 682

Source : Service Central des Études et Enquêtes Statistiques — recensement agricole, 1970, 1979, 1988, 2000.

Table 2. Access to water in France

Access to water resource Irrigated acreage (ha) Acreage (%)

Collective 371 137 23.6

Individual 887 912 56.4

Both collective and individual 316 577 20.0

Total 1 575 616 100.0

Source : Service Central des Études et Enquêtes Statistiques — recensement agricole, 2000.

In order to regulate individual access to water resources and taking into account the
difficulty of the enforcement of legal rules (Flory, 2003), the only economic instrument in
place is tax on water withdrawal by the basin agencies following the polluter-pays
principle. Charges are derived from the withdrawn water volume or lump sums on the
basis of the irrigated surface when no metering system has been yet installed. Through
these charges users internalise some of the negative impacts on environment and third
parties are provoked. But, the low level of these charges compared to the cost of water
(individual or collective) services, implies they don't have any incentive to save water
(Table 3).

Table 3. Water basin authorities: abstraction charges for irrigation

Minimum & maximum
taxes amount
(2003-2006, )

Water basin
authorities

Average tax
(2002,

Abstracted volume
(millions m3, 2002)

Adour Garonne 0.0047 0.0026 - 0.0057 758

Artois Picardie 0.0134 0.0120 - 0.0609 15

Loire Bretagne 0.0066 0.0044 - 0.0175 495

Rhin Meuse 0.0014 0.0013 - 0.0015 77

Rhone Méditerranée 0.0015 0 - 0.0027 1643

Seine Normandie 0.0171 0.0051 - 0.0192 95

Source : Agences de l'Eau.

As these individual water services are not, by definition, subject to any charge, except
the charges we see in Table 3, or in very specific conditions where water is withdrawn
from a re-supplied river, this paper addresses collective services for irrigation that are