Current and future challenges for irrigation communities

Abstract

Irrigation communities are corporations under public law attached to a river basin agency which are in charge of the autonomous management of irrigation water. Their function is to manage a public asset in the most efficient and sustainable way possible and at the lowest possible cost. Irrigation is the supply of water at the time and in the quantity that crops require. This chapter contains three main parts. The first is a description of the irrigation communities in Catalonia, with their main figures, functions and objectives. The second part deals with the primary challenges of today for irrigation communities: ensuring water availability, financing major investments, reducing energy dependence and monitoring the work done by the operator. In the last part we discuss the future challenges of irrigation communities: the constant modernization of irrigation, participation and parity, representation in the river basin agency, ecological and digital transition, and communication on social networks. The current and future challenges presented here are based on the author’s experience in issues related to the irrigation sector and irrigation communities.

KEYWORDS: irrigation community, irrigation water management, food production, modernization and irrigation transformation, efficiency improvement, ecological and digital transformation.