Source:
Technical IgK Dpt.
22 July 2015
Who waters?
Always exists and will exist controversy over the different uses of water. In the case of Spain, irrigated agriculture uses approximately 80% of our water resources, industry 14% and 6% urban areas.
Water is energy itself, and as such should be managed.
Water is a decisive production factor, is a crucial resource and should have an appreciation of the economic and social value that has never had. It also has relationships with global warming, and we can not do anything but make demands appreciation of this energy. Water use has improved our quality of life, social welfare and our future prospects, increasing agricultural production, improving food safety and public health.
In the efficient use of water, agricultural practices and irrigation should be ahead of this shift, we have dictated by our own mistakes and the future demands arising from population growth and welfare societies
This implies different dimensions if we talk about the efficiency of uptake of water, transportation and distribution, application and irrigation, and even the use by the plant through the roots. All of them should be evaluated together coherently for analysis. If we can measure all the variables that come into play, we come to what is called "global efficiency of irrigation" whose values ??can range from 0 to 1. In a system correctly designed, built and used this value should be at least 0, 8. In our country, this value is around 0.2, since we can find losses of up to three quarters of the total available water in the process of storage, transportation and secondary pipe networks, not counting the times when irrigation exceeds the water needs of the crop or has an inefficient design.
Therefore, from the government, in addition to limiting the maximum annual allocations, it should be required professional qualifications that empowers the decision of the daily dose of irrigation, as is already done in terms of application of pesticides to Membership card of Manipulator of Pesticides Products, or the figure of the Advisor/Consultant in Integrated Pest Management.
Regarding irrigation systems, it also could regulate the faculty of design, construction and installation, in the same way we do with other energies such as gas.
Water is energy itself, and as such should be managed.