Estudio de la evolución de los regadíos mediante técnicas de benchmarkingaplicación en la Región de Murcia

Laburpena

Competition for water use increases daily as a consequence of the growing world population, climate change and the ever increasing demands of the various economic sectors. In this context, the present thesis, framed in the European project SIRRIMED and more specifically in Workpackage nº 3, deals directly with the characterization of the irrigated areas by applying benchmarking techniques in order to propose the best management practices. For this study five Irrigation Districts (IDs) in the Region of Murcia, which represent 38.5% of the regional irrigable area, have been analyzed for a period of ten years (2002-11). The main contributions of the thesis are the study of the water-energy nexus in IDs, as well as the effect of water scarcity and the modernization of performance indicators on irrigable lands over such a long period. The use of benchmarking techniques has revealed that the studied IDs have had very hight agricultural production, with very hight distribution efficiency, but aasociated to high system operating costs. The study IDs also were subjected to frequent water sortages and irregular supply; water sortages produced large annual fluctuations in indicators IDs. The results clearly show that water supply restrictions contributed to the important performance changes observed over time to a much greater extent than the modernisation process did. The results of the study also highlight the two differents types of modernisation processes: ¿First generation¿ modernisation, involving the pressurisation of distribution networks, and ¿Second generation¿ modernisation, whose fundamental characteristics focus on the automation of hydraulic infrastructure and the incorporation of Information Technology and Communications (ICTs). The latter provides an improved service to irrigators, the provision of water traceability information, and a transparent, efficient and equitable water distribution. Traditional performance indicators are no able to reflect these improvements and as a result new indicators are proposed to quantify adequately this reality.