Water Variability and the Economic Impacts on Small-Scale Farmers. A Farm Risk-Based Integrated Modelling Approach

Francisco J. Fernández (), Roberto Ponce Oliva (), Maria Blanco, Diego Rivera and Felipe Vásquez Lavín
Additional contact information
Francisco J. Fernández: Technical University of Madrid
Diego Rivera: Universidad de Concepción

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2016, vol. 30, issue 4, No 4, 1357-1373

Abstract: Abstract Strengthening the planning of hydrological resources to optimize the use of water in agriculture is a key adaptation measure of the Chilean agricultural sector to cope with future climate change. To address this challenge, decision-makers call for tools capable of representing farmers’ behaviours under the likely stresses generated by future climate conditions. In this context, of special concern are the effects of water variability on small-scale farmers, who commonly operate with narrow profit margins and who lack access to financial resources and technological knowledge. This paper sheds light on the economic impacts of changes in water availability on small-scale agriculture. We provide a hydro-economic modelling framework that captures the socio-economic effects of water shocks on smallholders in the Vergara River Basin, Chile. This approach links a farm risk-based economic optimization model to a hydrologic simulation model adjusted for the basin. Our results indicate that at the aggregated level, there will be minor economic impacts of climate change on the basin’s small-scale agriculture, with small decreases in both expected utility and wealth. However, large differences in the economic impacts of wealthy and poor small-scale farmers are found. Changes in water availability, reduce the options of land reallocation to increase farmer’s expected utility, being the poor small-scale farmers the most negatively affected.

Keywords: Hydro-economic model; Small-scale farmers; Risk; Water variability; Climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-016-1227-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Journal Article: Water Variability and the Economic Impacts on Small-Scale Farmers. A Farm Risk-Based Integrated Modelling Approach (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:30:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s11269-016-1227-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-016-1227-8

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().