Environmental indicator-based analysis of water use in european agriculture. A critical review Authors Maura Coca-Sabater Geògrafa Amparo Cortés-Lucas Universitat de Barcelona Keywords: agri-environmental indicators, water resources, efficient use. Abstract Environmental indicators have become the vehicles of the technical and scientific information available at all times in order to facilitate, among other tasks, those of politicians and managers, who must make decisions on the sustainable use of natural resources in different sectors of activity. Indicator systems must represent the reality of the moment, which is why they can and must vary over time as circumstances change. The present study reviews, both descriptively and in view of the results provided, the indicators used in Europe over the last twenty years to describe the use of water resources in agricultural activities. It is highlighted here that the selection of indicators should be based on such key issues as political significance; responsiveness for correction of the detected situation, if necessary; analytical soundness; data availability and measurability and ease of interpretation and profitability. The identification of possible data sources and the compatibility between them have been a central issue that has not always been well resolved. Agriculture and water are sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the 2030 UN Agenda. Neither sustainable water management (SDG6) nor sustainable agriculture (SDG2) can be achieved independently and both are now awaiting the “assistance” of well-crafted indicators. It is to be hoped that the experience of recent years will be useful.Keywords: agri-environmental indicators, water resources, efficient use. Downloads Download data is not yet available. Author Biography Amparo Cortés-Lucas, Universitat de Barcelona Departament de Biologia, Sanitat i Medi Ambient, Universitat de Barcelona Downloads PDF (Català) Issue No. 49: desembre 2020 Section Articles License The intellectual property of articles belongs to the respective authors. On submitting articles for publication to the journal QUADERNS AGRARIS, authors accept the following terms: Authors assign to ICEA (a subsidiary of Institut d’Estudis Catalans) the rights of reproduction, communication to the public and distribution of the articles submitted for publication to QUADERNS AGRARIS.Authors answer to ICEA for the authorship and originality of submitted articles.Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for the reproduction of all graphic material included in articles.ICEA declines all liability for the possible infringement of intellectual property rights by authors.The contents published in the journal, unless otherwise stated in the text or in the graphic material, are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd) 3.0 Spain licence, the complete text of which may be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/deed.en. Consequently, the general public is authorised to reproduce, distribute and communicate the work, provided that its authorship and the body publishing it are acknowledged, and that no commercial use and no derivative works are made of it.The journal QUADERNS AGRARIS is not responsible for the ideas and opinions expressed by the authors of the published articles.
