Sustainable Agricultural Use of Aquifers in Southern Europe: Integration between Agricultural and Water Management Policies – SAGA

FEEM coordinates the concerted action, and is responsible for all administrative and contractual arrangements. FEEM organises the periodic workshops, and assists partners to share available information and results derived from their on-going research activities.

As far as the scientific contribution is concerned, FEEM contributes to the concerted action by getting an overview of the present state-of-art regarding:

• the state and the expected evolution of water supplies and water needs in Southern European Countries;
• the state and expected evolution of groundwater resources, both in quantitative and qualitative terms and;
• the assessment of the economic value of groundwater and identification of policy schemes to attain more sustainable paths of groundwater use.
  Partners

Water shortage is not a new phenomenon in Southern European regions, new is the perspective of more diffused and long lasting disequilibria between water demand and water supply, with a correlated increase of competition and conflicts among users. Major changes in the approach to water resource management are required, if the challenges of the future are to be met. As asserted by the European Commission, one of the major changes required is a shift from preoccupation with increasing water availability to a more balanced approach, which emphasises conservation and protection of water resources. In this context, special attention should be devoted to aquifers, since they often represent the most important sources and reserves of freshwater in Southern European regions.

Agricultural production processes may involve different patterns of utilisation of natural resources. As far as groundwater is concerned, the term ‘utilisation’ must be interpreted in a broad sense,which means it should not only include direct consumption (withdrawals) but also ‘incidental uses’ (groundwater pollution), for instance, although pollution may arise because of overpumping (saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers), groundwater contamination can also be traced back to farming practices, which either imply (as a by-product) the generation of potential contaminants or increase the likelihood that such contaminants actually reach water bodies. Since agricultural policy exerts a considerable influence on crop patterns and production processes, assessing its indirect impacts and identifying strategies to integrate agricultural policy with water resource conservation objectives, is an important step toward formulating strategies to more sustainable resource management.

The overall aim of the concerted action is to contribute to this objective, by synthesis of the present state-of-the art regarding:

• the state and expected evolution of water supplies and water needs;
• the groundwater degradation problems and main causes of degradation;
• the identification of sustainable paths of groundwater use;
• the assessment of indirect impacts of agricultural policies and integration between agricultural and water management policies and;
• identification of gaps in current knowledge and research.