LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 4, SESSION B: CROP PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
814
107. Implementing decision making in irrigation management based
on productive and environmental indicators
Maria José Amores 1,* , Francesc Ferrer 2 , Orene Cabot 2 , Assumpció Anton 1,3 , Albert Duaigües 2 , Francesc
Castells 1 , Eskinder Demisse Gemechu 1
1 Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain, 2 LabFerrer. Centre Assessoria Dr Ferrer SL, Cervera
(Lleida), Spain, 3 Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentaria, Enginyeria i Biosistemes. Cabrils (Barcelona),
Spain, Corresponding author. E-mail: mariajose.amores@urv.cat
Irrigated agriculture faces the need to improve water management practices at a farm level from a productive,
social and environmental point of view. To evaluate the performance from a productive and water use
efficiency point of view, some indices have been traditionally used (Hoffman et al., 2007; Fessehaziona et
al., 2011 and Stirzaker, 2011). They could be classified in three categories: first, Water Productivity or Irrigation
requirements based on water consumption, yield and evapotranspiration (ET) estimations; second,
Leaching fraction or drainage requirements for soil and water salinity control; and third, Irrigation system
performance. To be useful to the irrigator, these indexes should be calculated for each Farm Management
Unit (FMU), which may correspond to a particular field where water consumption, potential water crop requirements
(ETc), yield, manpower, machinery and other parameters could be assigned. At the end of the
season, these indicators could help assessing its strategy, by benchmarking the FMUs performance, think
about changes or improvements that may have a beneficial impact on the crop and water use performance of
the farm. To be able to steer irrigation management along the growing season and make tactical decisions,
reliable information should be obtained at different scales (FMUs, farm and watershed). Assessing practices
to reduce the environmental impact of irrigation (mainly, avoiding consumptions beyond real necessities and
reducing the impact of leaching and erosion) will have to be done at a FMU scale and be integrated into the
manager’s dashboard. Therefore, the quantification of water use sustainability indicators should be based on
a solid and simple conceptual model, so it can be integrated into the farmer’s decision making processes.
This work presents an attempt to implement an inventory procedure at a Management Unit level with the aim
of calculating production, water use and environmental indicators to quantify and assess the impact of irrigation,
and to integrate it into the managers’ dashboard to make strategical decisions. We believe that the results
from this project could help orienting the application of the much more complex Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) to quantify and assess the environmental impact of irrigation considering a system beyond the limits
of the farm. As a practical trial of assessment of sustanaibility and decision making a case study was carried
out in the Ebro Valley near Lleida (NE Spain) where three irrigated farms where chosen during the 2011
growing season. The crops were vineyard, nectarine and corn for silage. In this first year, the goal of the
project was to construct a web-based program to calculate the basic production and water use efficiency indicators,
based on real data and a solid conceptual model. The idea behind was to validate the results for the
studied FMUs, to test if this procedure can be used at a larger farm scale (with many FMUs) and to assess
the eventual insertion into the software of environmental sustainability indicators.
By and large, there are several criteria and methods to assess environmental sustainability at farm level, so it
provides some increasing variability and uncertainty. Hence, it is needed assessing that from statistical point
of view or from large regions. However, that issue lead us to discuss about underestimating or overvaluing
the sustainability, highlight the importance of geographical reference units and quantify the uncertainty that
these decisions could have to choose the correct criteria for decision makers.
References
Fessehaziona, M.K., R.J. Stirzaker, J.G. Annandale, C.S. Everson.2011. Improving nitrogen and irrigation
water use efficiency through adaptive management: A case study using annual ryegrass. Agriculture, ecosystems,
environment 141 (2011): 350-358
Hoffman, G.J., R.G. Evans, M.E. Jensen, D.L. Martin, R.L. Elliott (Eds.). 2007. Design and operation of
farm irrigation systems. 2 nd Edition. ABABE, MI, USA.
Stirzaker, R.J. 2011. Strategy, tactics and heuristics for managing solutes in horticultural crops. Proc. 6 th IS
on Irrigation of Horticultural crops. Ed.: S. Ortega-Farias and G. Selles. Acta Hort. 889, ISHS 2011