Dataset: Ratio of irrigation water consumption to water availability (ClimWatAdapt project, 2050, EcF)
The ratio of irrigation water consumption to water availability during June, July and August for 2050, SCENES scenario Economy First (EcF).In order to assess the vulnerability of the agricultural sector to climate change, the indicator “irrigation consumption-to-water availability” (c.t.a.) is introduced. Irrigation consumption refers to the part of the irrigation water that is really “consumed” by the crops and evapotranspirates (net irrigation requirements).The amount of water used for irrigation has been calculated for the base year based on the baseline climate (1961-90). It must be noted that the future irrigation water requirements were calculated within SCENES, i.e. the climate change input differs from the climate data used in the ClimWatAdapt framework because another emission scenario and different GCM output were applied. The assessment is performed on the river basin level for average annual conditions as well as for the summer season (JJA). This indicator does not consider the reduction of natural flow by upstream consumptive use, thus the water resources are only available for irrigation.By using this indicator, it is assumed that a drainage basin suffers from severe water stress if c.t.a. > 0.3 or, in other words, if irrigation consumption exceeds 40% of reliable annual (or seasonal) water availability. A c.t.a. below 0.3 indicates low to mid water stress. The thresholds are chosen arbitrarily but have been derived from EEA (2003) which shows a figure for the water consumption index ranging from (almost) zero to 30% in Europe. According to EEA (2003), the average water consumption index in Europe is 3%.