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Comparison of Irrigation Management in Water User Associations of Italy, Spain and Turkey Using Benchmarking Techniques

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Abstract

This study analyses the collective management of irrigation water in 42 WUAs operating in agricultural regions of Italy, Spain and Turkey. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Agglomerative Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (AHCA) are used for benchmarking the technical and financial performance of the WUAs. The analysis shows that the Spanish WUAs, which have less staff (–90%) and higher revenue collection (-53%), perform better than the WUAs of the other two countries. PCA and AHCA indicate that the technical and financial performance of the Turkish and some Spanish WUAs are similar. The Italian and Turkish associations have very large irrigation areas, and WUAs, which may be one of the reasons for the poor management in some organization areas of these countries. Specifically, Italy has excessive Management, Operation and Maintenance costs (up to 1500 €/ha-yr) and large staff numbers (5 persons per 100 ha of irrigated area), while Turkey has high water waste (up to 15000 m3/ha-yr) and insufficient revenue collection (about 60%). Based on the benchmarking results, recommendations are made, to improve the water use and financial performance of the Italian and Turkish WUAs.

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Data Availability

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Funding

The research carried out by the University of Córdoba (Spain) was funded by the project PID2020-115998RB-C21of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. The other authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosystem Engineering, Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Antalya, Turkey

    Firat Arslan

  2. Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineers, Department of Applied Mechanics and Project Engineering, University of Castilla - La Mancha, Campus universitario s/n, 02071, Albacete, Spain

    Juan Ignacio Córcoles Tendero

  3. Renewable Energy Research Institute, Section of Solar and Energy Efficiency, C/ de la Investigación s/n, University of Castilla - La Mancha, 02071, Albacete, Spain

    Juan Ignacio Córcoles Tendero

  4. Department of Agronomy, University of Córdoba, Campus de Rabanales, Edif. L. da Vinci, 14071, Córdoba, Spain

    Juan Antonio Rodríguez Díaz

  5. Department AGRARIA, Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Loc. Feo di Vito, 89122, Reggio Calabria, Italy

    Demetrio Antonio Zema

Authors
  1. Firat Arslan
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  2. Juan Ignacio Córcoles Tendero
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  3. Juan Antonio Rodríguez Díaz
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  4. Demetrio Antonio Zema
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design as well as the material preparation, data collection and analysis. The first draft of the manuscript was written by D.A.Z. and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Demetrio Antonio Zema.

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Arslan, F., Córcoles Tendero, J.I., Rodríguez Díaz, J.A. et al. Comparison of Irrigation Management in Water User Associations of Italy, Spain and Turkey Using Benchmarking Techniques. Water Resour Manage 37, 55–74 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-022-03355-2

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