Economic and Environmental Assessment of Two Different Rain Water Harvesting Systems for Agriculture

Luigi Pari, Alessandro Suardi, Walter Stefanoni, Francesco Latterini and Nadia Palmieri
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Luigi Pari: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy
Alessandro Suardi: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy
Walter Stefanoni: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy
Francesco Latterini: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy
Nadia Palmieri: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-13

Abstract: Increasing aridity and subsequent water scarcity are currently among the major problems of agriculture. Rainwater harvesting could represent a way to tackle this issue, and, as a consequence, scientific research has been more and more focused on such topic. On the other hand, few scientific studies related to economic and environmental assessment of rainwater harvesting systems in agriculture are available. The present study carried out an economic and environmental analysis of two different systems for rainwater harvesting: a typical pond and an innovative flexible water storage system (FWSS). The environmental and economic performance of the systems was compared using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methodologies, referring to a functional unit (FU) of 1 m 3 of storable water. The FWSS showed better environmental end economic performance than the pond system, resulting with both lower environmental impacts (17.04 g per m 3 CO 2 vs 28.2 g per m 3 CO 2 ) and lower costs (16.94 € per m 3 vs 20.41 € per m 3 ). Moreover, the pond system was more impactful than the FWSS for all the 17 categories investigated. Therefore, the FWSS can be a suitable solution for water harvesting in agriculture sector, showing interesting features for farmers.

Keywords: ecoefficiency; life cycle assessment (LCA); life cycle costing (LCC); run-off; pond; flexible water storage system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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