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Water Conservation and Saving Technologies (WCSTs) can contribute to reduce the pressure on water resources from agricultural activities. A significant strand of literature on agricultural and innovation economics has explored the main drivers behind the adoption of WCSTs in agriculture, but due to the shortage of data most studies are based on survey analyses focusing on a specific case study. Therefore, results cannot be easily generalised. In this paper, we used a structured literature review (SRL) approach to systematise the original studies already published on the WCSTs adoption. Focusing on the econometric analysis used to estimate the main drivers of WCSTs adoption, our analysis started from an initial selection of 1027 studies, then after excluding book chapters, book, conference chapters and after checking abstracts and key-words we arrived to a final selection of 36 papers which have been deeply scrutinized with a structured analysis of their contents. Several findings have emerged from the analysis. The drivers of WCSTs adoption are various and heterogenous. We synthetized the main determinants into different categories: a) farm characteristics (land size, the presence of extension services, capital assets and internal organization within the farm; b) farmer characteristics ( age, level of education, income); c) institutional environment (social networks, previous information on the technology, membership to farmer organizations, public fundings, access to credit, cost of water, access to groundwater, water constraint); d) geographic and climate characteristics (soil quality, drought, aridity).

Abstract Wastewater reuse is seen as an opportunity to support a circular economy and optimize water resources. However, the use of wastewater is limited by the need for the proper protection of health and the environment and demands a certain minimum quality of treated reclaimed water. The objective of this work is to evaluate the opportunities both for the agents in the water treatment chain (from municipalities to farmers) and for technology providers under the recently approved Regulation EU‐2020/741. The new market and opportunities require new value chains, technology development, governance, risk assurance, and adapted local regulation. Bottlenecks also pose technological, environmental, institutional, economic, and social challenges. The identified needs and barriers must be properly addressed in order to accelerate the transformation of the water sector toward the circular economy. As a conclusion, Reg EU 2020/741 introduces minimum requirements for urban wastewater reuse and requires the definition of risk management and transparency. The real impact of regulation on circular‐economy objectives is limited by water scarcity and crop profitability. Social acceptance is critical for success.

Study region: The Guadalquivir Basin in Spain as a representative Mediterranean basin. Study focus: The aim of this study is to assess the adaptive capacity of Mediterranean basins to long periods of severe drought. To do so, a hydro-economic model has been developed that includes a spatial representation of the major economic uses of water and enables an analysis of the economic and environmental effects of alternative water management policies under a single event of water scarcity. New hydrological insights for the region: Results highlight the trade-offs among economic uses of water and environmental flow requirements since water resources in the Guadalquivir are fully allocated. Moreover, the increase of irrigated perennial crops area will aggravate vulnerability to drought by limiting the adaptive capacity of the basin. Survival irrigation is the first option for farmers to adapt to the simulated extreme drought. 148,000 ha are shifted from normal irrigation to survival irrigation in the Drought Management Protocol scenario. These findings call for policy interventions to ensure greater management flexibility toward optimising water use while meeting environmental goals. For instance, enabling water trading among farmers would reallocate 22 % more water to the upper basin, reducing drought losses by 22 M EUR. The hydro-economic model developed here can be adapted to basins elsewhere and the results show that it can be a useful tool to guide the design of efficient water management policies to address severe droughts in water-stressed basins.

The transition from a linear bio-based economy to a sustainable circular bioeconomy depends not only on the skills that the different actors of the innovation system can find, develop, and exploit internally, but also on the efficiency with which they can access external sources of knowledge and skills related to technologies and markets. In this scenario, understanding the dynamics of learning and knowledge accumulation acquires greater importance due to the bioeconomy’s position at the confluence of several technological areas. Therefore, for this study, we apply qualitative system dynamics modelling methods to the analysis of Andalusia’s circular bioeconomy, obtaining important insights into its complexity due to the existence of non-linear processes, multiple feedback loops, and time delays. The models thus generated led to the identification of 20 key interventions points where targeted actions by governments and other actors could help overcome the pervasiveness of information asymmetry in the sector.

Aim of study: To analyse the diffusion of the crop by producing forecast models, that intend to help farmers in their decision-making. Area of study: Spain. The area dedicated to pistachio cultivation in Spain has multiplied by 36 in the period 2010 to 2020, reaching 44,244 ha. Material and methods: This study brings together data on the evolution of pistachio cultivation based on the following parameters: cultivated area, yield, and price. Methods are based on internal, external influence models and on an influence-price-crop yield pattern. Main results: The results indicate that given a constant crop yield, raising pistachio prices, will bring a production increase that generate the saturation level of the system. Similarly, with a constant pistachio price and an increment of the crop yield, the saturation level of the system increases. Regarding the pattern of influence, it is shown that in a context of suitable market prices for pistachio and an optimal synergy of the production factors that favour the crop yield not only increases the level of saturation of the system but also the duration of the diffusion process. Research highlights: The diffusion curve is sigmoidal with a well-defined inflection point and three well-defined phases. The adoption of pistachio in Spain responds to a model of internal influence (logistic) and never to models of external influence. According to the results, the process has a zero-innovation effect, while the dynamics of the process is completely determined by an imitation effect.

Aim of study: To assess the economic viability of implementing carbon fertilisation (CF) on the Campo de Dalías greenhouse agricultural sector. Area of study: Agricultural area of Campo de Dalías (Southeast of Spain), the highest density of greenhouses for horticulture in Europe, with an area of 21,285 ha of greenhouses, spread over an entire area of 33,000 ha. Material and methods: Based on the technology currently used in the Campo de Dalías, we estimated the impact of introducing technology that could incorporate CF (multi-span greenhouses) and that of CF itself. The main indicators analysed were value added, employment, gross output, and input use, and especially water consumption. Main results: The results show an improvement in the most important indicators analysed, making CF an economically viable technique that will help the development process of the agricultural sector in Campo de Dalías. Research highlights: Campo de Dalias production competes in Central European markets with others coming from areas with lower costs (North Africa) or those with higher technical standards (mainly the Netherlands). Species traditionally grown in the Campo de Dalías greenhouses have disappeared due to their low profitability. Technological innovation is the only way out to prevent this important sector from continuing losing value.

Article 9 of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires member states to take account not only of the principle of cost recovery of water services, including environmental and resource costs (ERCs), but also of the use of water pricing as an environmental policy instrument; nevertheless, no common methodology exists for the estimation of financial costs, nor is there a practical definition of ERC. The review of public evidence and scientific research regarding the effect of pricing on demand shows the limitations of water pricing and the need to integrate pricing and non-pricing instruments. Cost recovery remains a convenient policy for the financing of existing and future water infrastructures. This study offers a brief discussion on the theory and practice of pricing in Article 9 of the WFD and proposes the adoption of a more realistic approach to the implementation of cost recovery, one which abandons the unrealistic objective of monetisation of ERCs and proposes alternatives to the current emphasis on water pricing as a component of water resources management.

The estimation and quantification of external environmental costs (hidden costs) are crucial to sustainability assessments of treated wastewater reuse projects. These costs, however, are rarely considered in economic analysis studies. In this work, monetized life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) were combined into a hybrid model to calculate cradle-to-farm gate external environmental costs (EEC) and internal costs (IC) of producing 1 t of plant-based product irrigated with reclaimed water in a Mediterranean context. The total cost was calculated by combining monetized LCA and LCC results. The results for the crops under consideration were 119.4 €/t for tomatoes, 344.4 €/t for table grapes, and 557 €/t for artichokes. Our findings show that there are significant hidden costs at the farm level, with EEC accounting for 57%, 23%, and 38% of the total cost of tomatoes, table grapes, and artichokes, respectively. Electricity use for water treatment and fertilization generated most of the EEC driven by the global warming, particulate matter, acidification, and fossil resource scarcity impact categories. When compared to groundwater, the higher internal costs of reclaimed water were offset by lower external costs, particularly when supported by low-energy wastewater treatment. This demonstrates that incorporating EEC into economic analyses might generate a better understanding of the profitability of treated wastewater reuse in crop production. In Italy and the Mediterranean region, research on the sustainability of water reuse in irrigation through life cycle thinking is still limited. Using a multi-metric approach, our analysis brought new insights into both economic and environmental performance – and their tradeoff relationships in wastewater reuse for irrigation of agricultural crops. In future research, it would be of interest to use different monetization methods as well as to investigate social externalities to explore their size and role in the total external costs.

Farmers in the developed world tend to over-apply fertilizer, and we explore a model for decision-making under uncertainty in yields. This article proposes an agro-economic model for farmer decision-making based on subjective expected yield and crop response to fertilization. The model explores subjective yield probability distributions that are both better suited to subjective crop yields than the previously proposed probability distribution and is easier to extract from farmers. The model allows the analysis of the impact of changes in fertilizer price and variance of expected yields. The model result is consistent with observed farmer behavior based on the rule of “fertilizing for the good years” that appears, according to our model, as rational and consistent with expected profit maximization under yield uncertainty since the cost of over-application is lower than that of the opportunity cost of under-application. The goal of increasing the efficiency of nitrogen use requires both technical innovation and an expansion of the knowledge on the socioeconomic factors underlying excessive crop fertilization that must be improved both to meet future food demands and to prevent environmental degradation and climate change.

This research analyses the subjective crop yield-water relationship and proposes a method to determine water supply in irrigated olives. The probability density for water response functions (PDF) is elicited from a series of interviews carried out on a wide group of farmers. The elicitation technique is based upon the triangular distribution (highest possible, most frequent and lowest possible) and estimates of yield related to water supply (low, ‘normal’ and full irrigation). The model presented illustrates the possibility of implementing simple decision models to support farmers to manage water considering the objectives of maximizing profit and minimizing risk.

Integrated water resources management seeks an efficient blend of all water resources (e [...]

This paper presents an analysis of the perception regarding reclaimed wastewater reuse in agriculture conducted in the European Union regions. The analysis is based upon a SWOT framework and applies a cluster analysis to reduce the dimension of the responses enabling an assessment of the different perceptions of water reuse. More than one hundred key actors identified among the regions participated in the evaluation of the relevance of aspects identified. The results indicate some groups of countries according to natural conditions (water scarcity) and the strategic role of agriculture as a key factor to determine agent’s perceptions and attitudes. The results indicate that the forthcoming EU regulation of water reuse should focus in the problems of the perceived high cost of reclaimed water for farmers and the sanitary risk perception for irrigated crops by consumers as the critical points for fostering the use of reclaimed water in agriculture and the need for regional implementation of the global regulatory framework.

This paper offers an exploratory microeconomic analysis of water use in the cultivation of almonds when water is considered a limiting production factor. When a crop is subjected to water limitation, the microeconomic principles behind irrigation decisions are based upon the water-yield relationship. The analysis is applied to an estimated water-yield response function for irrigated almond trees in southern Spain; our research focuses on determining the optimal irrigation dose when deficit irrigation is applied, as it is usual in water-scarce contexts. The situation in Spain is compared to that of other countries where water rights are less constrained. The economic analysis of the water production function is crucial, since it determines farmers’ income and helps them make appropriate management decisions, such as simultaneous decisions regarding the allocation of limited water to crops and the size of the irrigated area for almond production. Furthermore, public institutions need this basic information for the allocation of water in times of increasing water demand and of limited and decreasing resources.

Hydro-economic models (HEMs) constitute useful instruments to assess water-resource management and inform water policy. In the last decade, HEMs have achieved significant advances regarding the assessment of the impacts of water-policy instruments at a river basin or catchment level in the context of climate change (CC). This paper offers an overview of the alternative approaches used in river-basin hydro-economic modelling to address water-resource management issues and CC during the past decade. Additionally, it analyses how uncertainty and risk factors of global CC have been treated in recent HEMs, offering a discussion on these last advances. As the main conclusion, current challenges in the realm of hydro-economic modelling include the representation of the food-energy-water nexus, the successful representation of micro-macro linkages and feedback loops between the socio-economic model components and the physical side, and the treatment of CC uncertainties and risks in the analysis.

El propósito de esta nota es rendir homenaje al profesor Ballestero mediante un breve repaso a conceptos económicos estrechamente relacionados con su contribución a la ciencia económica en general y a la economía agraria en particular. En esta nota se repasan conceptos clave en la economía del agua que están en el centro del debate público y político y a los que el profesor Ballestero ha contribuido de manera fundamental.

The research aims to analyze the farmers' preferences towards the chemical input use in the case of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) being removed after 2013. The analysis is based on a survey of European farmers carried out in 2009. The intended responses of farmers to the CAP liberalization are analyzed by the logit model regressions. Although for the majority of respondents there would be no change in their intentions if the CAP were suppressed, about 20% would intend to decrease the amount of chemicals. The effects of the CAP liberalization appear not to be univocal and strongly case-specific, as it substantially differs across the European regions, farm locations and socio-economic structures.

This research examines stakeholders’ perceptions of and preferences for water markets in agriculture, focusing on the likely barriers that might refrain them from participating in such markets. The research was carried out on the Guadalquivir River Basin and involved semi-quantitative methods, combining a structured survey and focus group discussions. A very simple questionnaire was administered to each irrigation stakeholder (i.e., managers, water right holders and non-holders). The main result is that stakeholders will only keep selling water seasonally as the rights remain linked to the land. Nonetheless, some relevant differences among stakeholders were found. Managers seem to be more interested in selling water than farmers. Another important discrepancy was found between water rights holders and non-holders. Access to a water rights system, types of existing infrastructure, and legal and administrative aspects are also important factors influencing the acceptability of water trading in the study area. These results might be helpful to policymakers who are currently evaluating the potential for water markets in Europe and have little observable market data to work with.

This study aims to uncover the factors that influence farmers’ attitudes towards water allocation trading. In the study, we simulate two water availability scenarios, an average year and a drought year, in a contingent valuation experiment with 241 farmers. A survey was held in the spring of 2012 in the Guadalquivir and Almanzora River Basins. First, we estimated a multinomial logit model to determine the factors that influence farmers to decide to participate in our hypothetical market. We then analysed the structural and socio-economic factors determining the monetary value of traded water using Heckman’s two-step model. Our results indicate that those farmers who are more innovative and have had agricultural training show a higher willingness to participate in water trading. Additionally, low water-supply guarantee and appropriate information about seasonal water availability increase the probability of participation. Higher willingness to pay (WTP) for water is found in horticulture and among farmers who grow citrus and other permanent crops; lower water selling value (WTA) is found in farms with extensive annual crops and traditional olive groves. However, monetary values (WTP/WTA) are strongly dependent on the current cost of irrigation water services. While findings of this research seem to support the idea of diffusion innovation theory, the existence of ethical concerns that might influence farmers’ acceptance of irrigation water markets needs further analysis.

Esta investigación responde a la necesidad de información económica relativa a los beneficios derivados de la implementación de la Directiva Marco del Agua (DMA). Se plantea una definición práctica del concepto de beneficio ambiental y un escenario de valoración de los beneficios de la mejora de la calidad del agua que no tienen reflejo en el mercado. Esta valoración es necesaria, entre otros aspectos, para la evaluación de la desproporcionalidad de los costes de la DMA. La metodología se aplica a un caso práctico en el Guadalquivir en un ejercicio de valoración contingente y análisis estadístico mediante un modelo Heckman en dos etapas.

Este trabajo pretende contribuir a la aplicación de la DMA en relación con la selección de medidas para el uso sostenible y socialmente aceptado del agua. Nuestro análisis está orientado a la obtención, mediante el proceso analítico jerárquico (AHP), de la valoración social de los criterios de gestión del agua en el Guadalquivir, analizando para ello la legitimidad de la ampliación del embalse de la Breña (Córdoba), además de la evaluación de otras posibles medidas de gestión del agua. Los resultados sugieren que el AHP constituye una herramienta adecuada para la implementación de la DMA, así como un complemento útil del análisis coste-eficacia.

La estimación del valor del agua puede hacerse mediante diferentes métodos, de los cuales este trabajo propone el método de precios «quasi-hedónicos». El agua se considera en este trabajo como una variable «externa» que impacta en el precio diferencial de la tierra, y cuyo valor estimamos para la Cuenca del Guadalquivir. Los resultados nos muestran un valor capital del agua en el rango 2,8 €/m3 a 4,2 €/m3 con un valor más frecuente de 3,46 €/m3, que según el tipo de capitalización empleado nos daría un valor medio de renta del agua entre 0,14 €/m3 (para r = 4%) a 0,35 €/m3 (para r = 10%).

Para entender el desarrollo de la agricultura de riego es necesario estudiar la evolución de la productividad del agua en los cultivos de regadío. Este trabajo analiza la evolución de este indicador en los años 1989 y 2005 en la Cuenca del Guadalquivir. Para ello, se han utilizado datos estadísticos que, primero, han sido tratados a nivel comarcal y de cultivo y, posteriormente, se han agregado hasta obtener un valor global para toda la cuenca. Del conjunto de los resultados se deduce un valor de la productividad aparente del agua de aproximadamente un 0,5 €/m3 para el año 2005 y un incremento de un 327% respecto al año 1989.

Economics plays a double role in the field of water management, firstly as a powerful analytical tool supporting water allocation and policy decisions, and secondly in the form of policy instruments (water pricing, markets, etc.). This Special Issue presents a platform for sharing results connecting excellent interdisciplinary research applied to different regional and sectoral problems around the world. The 22 peer-reviewed papers collected in this Special Issue have been grouped into five broad categories: Water valuation and accounting; Economic instruments; Cost effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis; and Water productivity and Governance. They are briefly presented.

This paper develops a methodology for the economic analysis of water use proposed by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) based on the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (SEEA-Water) standard tables. Our proposal satisfies the requirements for the economic characterization set out in Article 5 of the WFD. A case study in the Guadalquivir river basin shows a similar characterization in the baseline scenario to previous studies, including apparent water productivity. The main contribution of our research, however, is the proposal of a methodology that would enhance comparability and knowledge-sharing between regions, countries, and sectors both in the European Union and worldwide.

This paper analyses the agricultural irrigation water use in a closed basin and the impacts on water productivity, and examines how they have affected the ‘closure’ process of the Guadalquivir river basin observed in recent decades. Following a period of expansion in irrigation, an administrative moratorium was declared on new irrigated areas in 2005. Since then, the main policy measure has been aimed at the modernisation of irrigated agriculture and the implementation of water conservation technologies. The analysis carried out in this paper shows a significant increase in mean irrigation water productivity in the pre‐moratorium period (1989–2005), driven by the creation of new irrigated areas devoted to high value crops and with a dominant use of deficit irrigation strategies, while a second phase (2005–2012) is characterised by slower growth in terms of the mean productivity of irrigation water, primarily as a result of a significant reduction in water use per area. Findings show that productivity gains seem to have reached a ceiling in this river basin, since technological innovations (such as new crops, deficit irrigation, and water‐saving and conservation technologies) have reached the limits of their capacity to create new value.

This research paper analyzes the economics of deficit irrigation based on the use of subjective estimates of the crop yield–water relationship to determine water supply in irrigated olive groves. Interviewed farmers were asked to give three estimates for the yield-water relationship as a function of water supply (full irrigation, usual deficit irrigation and extreme deficit irrigation). Those responses are contrasted with the actual irrigation dose and the results appear to support the hypothesis that a majority of farmers use deficit irrigation as a strategy that maximizes the value of limited water input rather than the conventional microeconomic behavior of maximizing the return to land.

This paper analyzes the impact of droughts on agricultural water productivity in the period 2004–2012 in the Guadalquivir River Basin using the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (SEEA-Water). Relevant events in this period include two meteorological droughts (2005 and 2012), the implementation of the Drought Management Plan by the basin's water authority (2006, 2007 and 2008), and the effects of irrigated area modernization (water-saving investment). Results show that SEEA-Water can be used to study the productivity of water and the economic impact of the different droughts. Furthermore, the results reflect the fact that irrigated agriculture (which makes up 65% of the gross value added, or GVA, of the total primary sector) has considerably higher water productivity than rain-fed agriculture. Additionally, this paper separately examines blue water productivity and total water productivity within irrigated agriculture, finding an average productivity of 1.33 EUR/m3 and 0.48 EUR/m3, respectively.

Despite growing interest in biomass over the last number of years, bio-energy derived from biomass currently contributes to a very small share of the total Spanish energy market. How individual farmers choose to respond to the opportunities presented by these relatively novel crops has still received scarce attention. In this paper, farmers’ intentions towards the adoption of energy crops are analyzed. A survey of 201 farm- households in Southern Spain is explored using a non-parametric approach based on classification tree algorithms. The main outcome of this analysis is that off-farm labour factor affects the adoption of energy crops on farm, together with farm specializations, size of owned land and farmer’s education. While the study confirms the relevance of the main determinants available from the literature, need for further research is emphasised.

The article presents the debate on the autochthonous ability of the EU for feeding the entire population. Topics include food resources obtained directly or indirectly from the use of photosynthesis and energy suitable to be consumed by the population; and percentage of domestic food waste generated in EU countries, as well as the losses produced throughout the distribution chain from farm to fork.