GIS based solar resource analysis for irrigation purposes: Rural areas comparison under groundwater scarcity conditions

Abstract

During the past decade, most governments have been promoting energy efficiency programs and the integration of renewable energy sources into the majority of energy uses. Among the diferent sectors, the agricultural sector is becoming a more active participant to reduce fossil fuel dependence and improve environmental sustainability. Indeed, agriculture usually combines both a high energy demand and water problems associated with over-exploited aquifers, providing great potential and remarkable opportunities to change the energy mix and maximize the use and integration of natural resources in a rational way. Considering this framework, the present paper describes and compares the solar resource integration and its effects on agricultural pumping purposes in two Mediterranean countries, Spain and Morocco, with significant differences in terms of energy mix, climatic conditions and energy policies. As a novel contribution in this paper, we propose the use of GIS to analyze the spatial and temporal variability of the solar resource through real data of both locations, as well as to study groundwater resources. With this aim, two technical proposals for irrigation purposes are compared in terms of environmental benefits, CO 2 emissions and agriculture energy model changes: diesel equipment and photovoltaic system. Results based on solar radiation resource, pumping requirements and aquifer depth are included in the paper.

Analysis of Spanish Radiometric Networks with the Novel Bias-Based Quality Control (BQC) Method

“…All of them presented defects in more than 40% of their stations (Figure 3a). Despite this, several studies have been published based on GH measurements from these networks, especially using SIAR stations [4,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45]. SIAR is an attractive network for research studies in Spain because it freely provides 30-min GH data over a dense network of more than 500 stations covering most of Spain.…”

“…What is even worse, the QC was non-existent in some studies [37,43,48,49]. Some authors relied on the QC protocols implemented by the networks to justify the absence of QC in their studies.…”

Assessment of Groundwater Pumping Alternatives for Irrigation Purposes based on the SIMUS Method

“…In this paper we work with 12 different alternatives, being the selection of the most adequate the aim of the paper. These 12 options are grouped in three modes, as follows [1,2,3]: 1-Direct: The water is extracted and immediately used, 2. Seasonal: The water is extracted during a season, and stored in dedicated reservoirs or ponds for their future use, 3.…”

“…Nowadays, most of the commercial water pumps equipment work with the supply of either electricity from the grid or from Diesel engines. However, PV Water Pumping (PVWP) [1][2][3][4] has been marginally implemented; being considered as an electric energy source mainly in remote locations or through hybrid solutions. There are four different ways for managing water pumping, with three options or alternatives each, as illustrated in Figure 1.…”

GIS Assessment of Mass Tourism Anthropization in Sensitive Coastal Environments: Application to a Case Study in the Mar Menor Area

“…In this context, the implementation of integrated indicators using GIS tools can be a very interesting technique for the assessment of these complex environments which are suffering from diffuse anthropization processes [22]. Remarkable methodologies have been implemented for the analysis of other diffuse phenomena in diverse areas such as sandy beaches [23]; coastal lagoons [24]; flood risk areas [25]; soils with heavy metal contamination [26]; heritage areas submitted to new tourism phenomena [27]; rural areas under groundwater scarcity conditions [28]; forest groundwater aquifers [29]; etc. In addition, it should be noted that GIS is a very useful diagnostic tool for environmental and territorial decision-making processes.…”