The cultural, economic and regulatory environment affecting the adoption of marginal quality water and risk reduction measures

Résumé

This chapter provides guidance on how to facilitate adoption of the technical solutions and risk mitigation measures presented throughout this publication, taking into account financial, environmental, social and regulatory-institutional adoption barriers and drivers. It also considers internal factors such as the need for behaviour change and external environmental factors such as policies or the availability of technology. The identification of driving forces and barriers to the adoption of MQW can facilitate the choice of existing risk mitigation measures or incentives tailored to the specific biophysical and institutional context as well as farmer’s ability to invest. It also enables feedback for the design of required institutional policies, incentive systems or alternative technical options which could have better adoption potential. This chapter therefore aims to provide a brief overview of drivers and barriers affecting the adoption of MQW by farmers. To this end, previous water reuse experiences provide insights and examples of site-specific factors affecting adoption decisions, following a basic conceptual framework. The framework is applied to the three scenarios of MQW adoption: (i) the use of reclaimed(safely treated) wastewater where freshwater is becoming scarce, (ii) risk mitigation practices where polluted water is already used in the absence of any alternative, and (iii) soil salinity mitigation measures.