Farmersd Willingness to Adapt to Climate Change
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598 © IWA Publishing 2018 Journal of Water and Climate Change | 09.3 | 2018 Farmers’ willingness to adapt to climate change for sustainable water resources management: a case study of Tunisia Asma Lasram, Hatem Dellagi, Bezaiet Dessalegn, Boubaker Dhehibi and Netij Ben Mechlia ABSTRACT Shrinking water resources as a potential result of climate change (CC) creates a challenging tradeoff Asma Lasram Higher Institute of Agronomy of Chott Mariem, situation in the north of Tunisia. This study provides valuable insights into the conditions that can P.O. Box 47, 4042 Chott Mariem, Sousse, Tunisia promote farmers’ acceptance of regulated deficit irrigation and a new water pricing policy to address CC impacts on the semi-arid irrigated region which will allow for a sustainable irrigation regime and Hatem Dellagi University of Economic and Management Sciences the conservation of water resources at regional scale. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze of Tunis, P.O. Box 248, El Manar II, 2092 Tunis, data collected from 100 farmers in the citrus regions of Beni Khalled and Menzel Bouzelfa, to identify Tunisia ’ determining factors for farmers willingness to accept the proposed water management strategies. Bezaiet Dessalegn Empirical findings reveal that the significant explanatory variables are essentially linked to farmer Integrated Water and Land Management Program (IWLMP), satisfaction about the current irrigation management in relation to water supply reliability, rather International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), than the social criteria and farmers’ awareness of water scarcity. More efforts are needed to improve El-Rawaby Neighborhood Behind Abdallah Abu Ghosheh street, Yousef el Sukkar Street Bldg. the transparency of water allocation systems to motivate the willingness of water users to adopt new no 8, Amman, technologies or policies. The different stakeholders should agree to take action now about strategic Jordan extension and communication plans to enhance awareness on ensuing environmental problems, to Boubaker Dhehibi (corresponding author) Sustainable Intensification and Resilient take advantage of long-term profitability of the water restriction. Production Systems Program (SIRPSP), International Center for Agricultural Research in Key words | citrus, farmer willingness, sustainable water resource management the Dry Areas (ICARDA), El-Rawaby Neighborhood, Behind Abdallah Abu Ghosheh street, Yousef el sukkar street bldg. no 8, Amman, Jordan E-mail: [email protected] Netij Ben Mechlia National Agronomic Institute of Tunis, 43 Av. Charles Nicole, 1082 Tunis Mahrajène, Tunisia INTRODUCTION Due to aridity, water resources in Tunisia are subject to high activity (Chouchane et al. ) and provides 85% of the demand pressure especially in the irrigated areas where total citrus production in the country (Regional Agricultural chronic water shortages have reached critical levels, causing Development Commissariat of Nabeul ) and substantial important environmental degradations and serious social income to about 25,000 rural households (Zekri & Laajimi tensions among users, as in the case of the Governorate of ). It is why this region with regards to citrus production Nabeul in north-eastern Tunisia, also known as the Cap- occupies an important place in the local and national econ- Bon peninsula, which is specially characterized by orange omy by contributing to the creation of employment, production. This area represents an important economic improving livelihoods, and enhancing the balance of doi: 10.2166/wcc.2018.171 Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/jwcc/article-pdf/9/3/598/484854/jwc0090598.pdf by guest on 30 October 2019 599 A. Lasram et al. | Adaptation to climate change for sustainable water resources management Journal of Water and Climate Change | 09.3 | 2018 payments through exports, in addition to its role in securing The prospects of increasing temperature and decreasing the food security for the local and national population. In precipitation in the region, due to CC (Ludwig et al. ; this region, decrease in groundwater level of the main aqui- Dakhlaoui et al. ), are expected to constrain more fers and water quality degradation are damage resulting water availability for agricultural uses and lower the from overexploitation, citrus surface extension, and non- supply reliability (Nunes et al. ), exposing the sustain- controlled increase of wells. This situation implies important ability of the entire production system to imminent risk. losses of soil fertility due to salt accumulation (Sarraf et al. For the winter–spring period, the increase trend of maxi- ). mum temperatures is about 0.43 C/10 year during 1973 to To mitigate the large hydrological deficits, additional 2013 (Lasram et al. ) and the decrease of cumulative pre- water was brought to Cap-Bon through a canal from the cipitation, not yet significant, is expected to be at least 16% north-western regions of the country, which is better during 2050–2090 (Bargaoui et al. ). Since the citrus endowed with water resources. By fixing an annual transfer sector is one of the most important economic sectors in quota of 80 Mm3 (National Center of Agricultural Studies the region (Chouchane et al. ) and since this region is ), the canal was supposed to solve the problem of the most edaphic-climate suitable in Tunisia for the pro- water imbalance. However, the plan failed because it did duction of special tasting citrus fruits (Ben Abdelaali et al. not account for the needs of new expansion in cultivated ), solutions based on cropping pattern optimization areas. Other measures taken to mitigate water shortages in such as substituting citrus with other crops, as proposed the irrigated areas include up to 60% subsidies extended to by many authors in similar climate conditions (Bozorg- farmers who adopt drip irrigation. However, despite the Haddad et al. ; Rai et al. ; Stein & Steinmann intentions of the modernization efforts to promote water ) are not suitable in this particular ecosystem. However, saving and conserve quality resources, on-farm water use for sustainable development, adaptation measures have to was not significantly reduced (Al Atiri et al. ), surface be mobilized and created to deal with the water scarcity pro- irrigated areas have been extended (Regional Agricultural blem in order to avoid an irreversible depletion of the Development Center of Nabeul ), groundwater aquifer and to protect the water resources. Innovative resources continue to be degraded (National Center of water management options and the use of technology such Agricultural Studies ) and hence the government has as desalination are among the important adaptive pathways not managed to curb the demand for more irrigation water. (Adger et al. ) and could be embedded within policy With the increase in groundwater salinity in the Cap- changes. Bon region and as citrus trees have been classified as a Quantitative and price control policies are the two most salt-sensitive crop (Syvertsena & Garcia-Sanchez ), commonly used mechanisms for water demand manage- farmers are becoming more dependent on canal water, ment, as underlined by many authors (Wietzman ; which is strongly and simultaneously solicited by other Feike & Henseler ), and could enhance the adaptive economic sectors such as tourism and industry. The avail- capacity of communities. For quantitative control, it was ability of canal water during the summer season is then proved through many studies that the application of regu- exposed to large fluctuations, making unplanned water lated deficit irrigation (RDI) is appropriate for managing cuts a serious threat to the entire region. This challenging water scarcity in citrus-planted areas and could save tradeoff situation is making water allocation for agricultural between 25 and 30% of water resources in Mediterranean- purposes a real dilemma for local water managers. The para- like climates and others, with an improvement of the fruit dox is that farmers who are complaining of water shortages quality and no significant reduction of the yield (Ballester are, at the same time, blamed for wasting too much water. et al. ; Panigrahi et al. ; Panigrahi & Srivastava Indeed, Dhehibi et al. () found, on the basis of a ). The planned restrictions of irrigation water are survey, that the technical efficiency of citrus growers was applied in order to avoid random water cuts, imposed by too low in Cap-Bon and that farmers could have the same reduced supplies. RDI is considered to be a promising tech- yields with reduction of the water supply by 47%. nology for ensuring the distribution of canal water among Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/jwcc/article-pdf/9/3/598/484854/jwc0090598.pdf by guest on 30 October 2019 600 A. Lasram et al. | Adaptation to climate change for sustainable water resources management Journal of Water and Climate Change | 09.3 | 2018 farmers with more equity, avoiding over-irrigation, and practices, and institutional governance and making it diffi- increasing water productivity. Likewise, with less irrigation cult to extrapolate these results to our specific context. water, inputs of dissolved salts into the soil are expected The main objective of this study was the assessment of to be reduced. farmers’ awareness regarding CC threats on water resources, For pricing control, and in order to improve the adaptive their likelihood of adopting new strategies such as RDI, and capacity of both stakeholders and policymakers to cope with their perception