El riesgo de disponibilidad de agua en la agricultura: una aplicación a las cuencas del Guadalquivir y del Segura

Abstract

Agriculture is a key sector in rural economics. In some Southern Regions of Spain capable of developing a competitive irrigation sector, agriculture is a powerful means towards development. This is the case of many comarcas of Guadalquivir and Segura River Basins, which however face a growing water scarcity and drought risk. To respond these problems in an effective manner, a series of Planes de Sequía have been approved in order to give a planned and strategic response. This paper focuses on expected impact of new decision rules established in the Planes de Sequía (which were passed without any previous economic impact analysis) and assess whether or not they contribute to irrigation sustainability and thus regional and rural economics development. This paper develops a stochastic model to assess economic loss derived from Planes de Sequía implementation over irrigated agriculture. Conclusions show that Planes de Sequía do not warrantee irrigation sustainability and priority uses water supply.