Assessment of Irrigation Water Use Efficiency in Citrus Orchards Using AHP

Abstract

Irrigation water use efficiency, the small size of the orchards, and part-time farmers are major issues for Spanish citriculture. How should irrigation water use efficiency be assessed? Does irrigation water use efficiency improve when increasing the size of the orchards? Are full-time farmers more efficient in irrigation water use than part-time ones? To address these three questions, we propose to apply a new multicriteria approach based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique and the participation of a group of experts. A new synthetic irrigation efficiency index (IEI) was proposed and tested using data from an irrigation community (IC) and a cooperative of farmers in the East of Spain. The results showed that the size of the orchards had no relation with the IEI scoring but full-time farmers tended to have better IEI scores and, thus, were more efficient. These results were obtained from a sample of 24 orchards of oranges, navelina variety, growing in a very similar environment, and agronomical characteristics. The proposed methodology can be a useful benchmarking tool for improving the irrigation water management in other ICs taking into account the issues related to farm data sharing recorded during the case study.

Assessment of Crop Evapotranspiration and Deep Percolation in a Commercial Irrigated Citrus Orchard Under Semi-Arid Climate: Combined Eddy-Covariance Measurement and Soil Water Balance-Based Approach

“…In Spain, water use efficiency was assessed by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique and a new synthetic irrigation efficiency index (IEI) was elaborated (Poveda-bautista et al, 2021). This study emphasized the significance of assessing the effectiveness of irrigation water use.…”

Orchard Level Assessment of Irrigation Performance and Water Productivity of an Irrigation Community in Eastern Spain

“…Assessing and ranking the global water use efficiency of citrus orchards has been also an application of performance indicators. Poveda-Bautista et al [44] built a synthetic irrigation efficiency index using the analytic hierarchy process, AHP, with the aim to recognize best agricultural practices for the efficient use or water resources.…”

An Analysis of Preference Weights and Setting Priorities by Irrigation Advisory Services Users Based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process

“…One of the advantages of the AHP method is to support both individual and group decisionmaking processes not only with a quantitative but also a qualitative approach. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing number of studies applying the AHP to deal with decisionmaking problems in agriculture [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. From these works, the utility of the AHP has arisen for understanding heterogeneous farming systems and how farmer behavior is needed for tailoring policy instruments.…”