Coproducing information on climate change adaptation across irrigation associations in Spain

Dr Paula Novo 

School of Environment, Faculty of Environment 

Relevant ESRC discipline: Environmental Planning/Social Statistics, methods and computing 

While droughts in Spain are not a new phenomenon, their management still constitutes a challenge due to their increasing unpredictability, recurrence, and severity.  Despite the diversity of measures and responses that irrigators and irrigation communities take at the local level, our knowledge about their effectiveness is rather rudimentary, and there is a significant lack of knowledge about their synergies with other forms of social mobilization.  Following from a pioneer study (Villamayor-Tomas and Novo, submitted) that aimed to understand the ability of irrigation farmers and irrigation associations to adapt to droughts, this project aims to extend this work and engage with the National Federation of Irrigators Communities in Spain (FENACORE) in an effort to institutionalizing a research and data component within irrigation associations.  The project will generate collective awareness among representatives or irrigation associations regarding drought adaption trends, opportunities, and challenges.  Specifically, the project will generate debate around the successes and failures of water efficiency infrastructure improvements and community-energy initiatives.  Beyond this the project will collaborate with FENACORE to focus on aspects they deem important.  This transdisciplinary aspect had been absent until now and aims to increase the social and economic relevance of our findings.