The contribution of national irrigation investment planning to sustainable water resource management in the Po River district

Titolo Rivista Economia agro-alimentare
Autori/Curatori Raffaella Pergamo, Luca Adolfo Folino, Marianna Ferrigno, Marica Furini, Manal Hamam, Veronica Manganiello, Antonio Manzoni, Alessandra Pesce, Benedetto Rocchi
Anno di pubblicazione 2026 Fascicolo 2025/3
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 25 P. 11-35 Dimensione file 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/ecag2025oa20808
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Vedi l'articolo Scarica l'articolo open access

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

Safeguarding water resources has become a strategic need to maintain the viability of agricultural operations, which are significantly reliant on water accessibility. The urgency of this requirement is amplified by the manifest effects of climate change, necessitating the implementation of specific solutions to improve irrigation system efficiency and foster sustainable use of water resources.
This research seeks to conduct an ex-post analysis of irrigation investments in the Po River Basin District, Italy’s most important agricultural area and one of the most irrigated in Europe, examining their sustainability by developing indicators that include technical, environmental, and social dimensions. The analysis examines interventions devised and executed by land reclamation and irrigation consortia, primarily targeting irrigation – including multipurpose reservoirs – as well as those directed towards environmental protection and the preservation of land and agricultural productivity amid instability.
Preliminary findings underscore the role of both current and prospective investments in enhancing the overall efficiency of the region. The research offers valuable insights for policymakers, affirming the critical importance of investments in irrigation infrastructure for enhancing the resilience and longterm sustainability of agriculture and the national water system.

Parole chiave:Irrigation investments;sustainability;water resources;DANIA;efficient area

  1. Bieroza, M. Z., Bol, R., & Glendell, M. (2021). What is the deal with the Green Deal: Will the new strategy help to improve European freshwater quality beyond the Water Framework Directive?. Science of the Total Environment, 791, 148080. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148080.
  2. Boix-Fayos, C., & de Vente, J. (2023). Challenges and potential pathways towards sustainable agriculture within the European Green Deal. Agricultural Systems, 207, 103634. doi: 10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103634.
  3. Colella, M., Ripa, M., Cocozza, A., Panfilo, C., & Ulgiati, S. (2021). Challenges and opportunities for more efficient water use and circular wastewater management. The case of Campania Region, Italy. Journal of Environmental Management, 297, 113171. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113171.
  4. Copetti, D., & Erba, S. (2024). A bibliometric review on the Water Framework Directive twenty years after its birth. Ambio, 53(1), 95-108. Doi: 10.1007/s13280-023-01918-0.
  5. Et-taibi, B., Abid, M. R., Boufounas, E. M., Morchid, A., Bourhnane, S., Hamed, T. A., & Benhaddou, D. (2024). Enhancing water management in smart agriculture: A cloud and IoT-Based smart irrigation system. Results in Engineering, 22, 102283. Doi: 10.1016/j.rineng.2024.102283.
  6. European Environment Agency (2021). Water resources across Europe – confronting water stress: an updated assessment. Doi: 10.2800/320975.
  7. Ferrigno M., Lorenzetti R., Folino L. A., Zucaro R. (2022). The new Italian web database to support irrigation investment policies: DANIA. International. Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics, 8(1). Doi: 10.1504/IJSAMI.2022.123047.
  8. Gharsallah, O., Cazzaniga, S., Chiaradia, E. A., & Gandolfi, C. (2024). The role of irrigation in groundwater recharge at the scale of the Po River basin district. doi: 10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3479.
  9. Hamam, M., Pergamo, R., Manganiello, V., & Ferrigno, M. (2024). Agricultural Wastewater Reuse as a Circular Economy Model: Future Scenarios Considering Reg. (EU) 2020/741. Water, 16(24), 3638. doi: 10.3390/w16243638.
  10. Jiang, Y. (2023). Financing water investment for global sustainable development: Challenges, innovation, and governance strategies. Sustainable Development, 31(2), 600-611. doi: 10.1002/sd.2412.
  11. Kumar, M., Deka, J. P., & Kumari, O. (2020). Development of water resilience strategies in the context of climate change, and rapid urbanization: a discussion on vulnerability mitigation. Groundwater for sustainable development, 10, 100308. doi: 10.1016/j.gsd.2019.100308.
  12. Manzoni, A., Hamam, M., Pastorelli, G., Servadei, L., Chiappini, S., Pesce, A., Tarangioli, S., & Pergamo, R. (2025). The EU Nature Restoration Law (NRL) and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): State of the Art and Future Challenges for Italian Water Resources. Land, 14(5). doi: 10.3390/land14050987.
  13. Martinengo, M., Ziantoni, A., Lazzeri, F., Rosatti, G., & Rigon, R. (2021). A practitioners’ view on the application of the water framework directive and the Floods Directive in Italy. In: Water law, policy and economics in Italy: Between national autonomy and EU law constraints (pp. 369-393). Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.31219/osf.io/5yj6w.
  14. Mishan, E. J. (1988). Cost-benefit analysis. London: Unwin Hyman, fourth edition.
  15. Ruberto, M., Chiappini, S., Ferrigno, M., Manganiello, V., Monteleone, A., Pesce, A., & Pergamo, R. (2023). Rural Development Policy for Water Management Sustainability in Italy: Opportunities to Achieve Water Framework Directive Objectives. In: International Congress on Agricultural Mechanization and Energy in Agriculture (pp. 441-459). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-51579-8_38.
  16. Saaty, T. L., & Vargas, L.G. (2012). Models, Methods, Concepts & Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process. New York (USA): McGraw-Hill. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-3597-6.
  17. Srivastav, A. L., Dhyani, R., Ranjan, M., Madhav, S., & Sillanpää, M. (2021). Climate-resilient strategies for sustainable management of water resources and agriculture. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 28(31), 41576-41595. doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-14332-4.
  18. Vieira, J., Cabral, M., Almeida, N., Silva, J. G., & Covas, D. (2020). Novel methodology for efficiency-based long-term investment planning in water infrastructures. Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 16(12), 1654-1668. doi: 10.1080/15732479.2020.1722715.
  19. Vizinho, A., Avelar, D., Branquinho, C., Capela Lourenco, T., Carvalho, S., Nunes, A., … & Penha-Lopes, G. (2021). Framework for climate change adaptation of agriculture and forestry in Mediterranean climate regions. Land, 10(2), 161. doi: 10.3390/land10020161.
  20. Zargham, M., & Szidarovszky, F. (2011) Multicriteria analysis – Applications to water and environment management. Springer Handbook. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-17937-2.

Raffaella Pergamo, Luca Adolfo Folino, Marianna Ferrigno, Marica Furini, Manal Hamam, Veronica Manganiello, Antonio Manzoni, Alessandra Pesce, Benedetto Rocchi, The contribution of national irrigation investment planning to sustainable water resource management in the Po River district in "Economia agro-alimentare" 3/2025, pp 11-35, DOI: 10.3280/ecag2025oa20808