Land, water and energy: the crossing of governance

Julia I. Armario Benitez
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Carlos San Juan Mesonada ()

UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía

Abstract: The paper focusses on the impact on dryland ecosystems of conflicting governance in the regulations of land use, water for irrigation and electric energy from photovoltaic installations(PV). The research uses the empirical results of a panel data model based on long time series that enable sensitivity of the main crops to energy cost and the viability of the solar panel system connected to the grid to be identified. We present evidence of the private and social benefits of investments in PV to improve the gross margin of farmers and decrease the carbon footprint of the irrigated areas. Relevant regional disparities in the sensitivity of the main crops explain the regional competition for low-cost water resources and the social conflicts associated with water governance. The Feed-In Tariff system for a PV system is evaluated as a tool to reach clean energy targets and preserve the populations working and living in irrigated drylands. An evaluation of the water desalination plants based on PV is analysed as an alternative to balance the hydric resources of intensive irrigated systems. The main conclusion is that coordinated regulation in energy and water policies may improve farmers' profitability and accelerate the speed in reaching environmental targets in drylands.

Keywords: Irrigation; Photovoltaic; Systems; Fit; Tariffs; Profitability; of; Irrigated; Crops; Adaptation; to; Climate; Change; Regional; Gross; Margin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/rest/api/core/bitstreams ... 107bb8dbdb58/content (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:werepe:31463

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ana Poveda ().