A socio-ecological model of the Segura River basin, Spain

Paula Andrea Zuluaga-Guerra, Julia Martinez-Fernandez, Miguel Angel Esteve-Selma and Jampel Dell'Angelo

Ecological Modelling, 2023, vol. 478, issue C

Abstract: The Segura River basin in South-East Spain is home to aquatic and dry-land ecosystems of regional significance. Pressurised, over the course of the last five decades, by interests of agricultural origin, the basin is caught up in a persistent water crisis traversed by conflict and socio-ecological deterioration. This article presents a socio-ecological-system characterisation of the Segura River basin with a focus on the interactions between institutional performance and expectations on irrigation water supply. The contribution of this research is twofold: first, it provides a model that develops a conceptual articulation of a socio-ecological framework in the idiom of Systems Dynamics; second, it generates (both numerical and qualitative) policy-relevant insights into the basin's crisis, in a way that fully reflects its complexity. Our results indicate that ∼333.100 ha of drylands and agro-natural landscapes were lost to agriculture, and that groundwater overexploitation reached ∼500 Hm3 within the 1960-2021 modelling horizon. Our work accurately models the pervasive impacts of intensive agriculture expansion in the Segura basin and portrays some of the socio-ecological consequences of the hydraulic paradigm in Spain, raising crucial doubts on the dominant forms of water governance in the region.

Keywords: Irrigated agriculture; Hydraulic paradigm; System dynamics modelling; Socio-ecological systems; Semiarid ecosystems; Water governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:478:y:2023:i:c:s0304380023000121

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110284

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