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Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 6 (2015) 674 - 681
"ST26733", International Conference "Agriculture for Life, Life for Agriculture"
The Importance of Water Security for Sustainable Development in
the Romanian Agri-Food Sector
Dumitru-Florin Fronea*, Simona Froneb
aUniversity of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest, 59 Mârâçti Blvd, District 1, 011464, Bucharest, Romania bInstitute of National Economy, at the Romanian Academy, 13 Calea 13 Septembrie, sector 5, 050711, Bucharest, Romania
Abstract
In this paper, we shall resume some of our research in the field of water security and sustainable economic development. Therefore, we define and further analyze the concept of water security, highlighting its actual increased importance for sustained economic growth and poverty alleviation. While the global demand for food is rising, there are several actors that will critically limit food production: the increased urbanization, the rising prices on inputs, the pressure on water resources and the increased crops and livestock vulnerability to climate change.
We may find a strong link between water security and food security, in the global resource nexus model. These issues are shown to be important also in Romania, in our times of climate change and of increased small-scale farmers' vulnerability. In agreement with the experts and considering the strategic relevance of these aspects, we aim to stress more on the importance of investment in water infrastructure in the rural areas of Romania, to achieve the water security required for a sustainable agri-food and rural development. Moreover, we highlight directions of integrated water management in view of a green economy. As a main recommendation is the need to implement programs and policies promoting water security, as well as water resource efficiency in the Romanian agriculture and rural development programs.
© 2015 The Authors. PublishedbyElsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest
Keywords: water security; agriculture; small-scale farms; food security; green economy
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +4-021-318-2564; fax: +4-021-318-2567 E-mail address: ffrone@hotmail.com
2210-7843 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest doi:10.1016/j.aaspro.2015.08.120
1. Introduction
Actually, we may consider that a green economy is the ultimate outcome of a sustainable economic development, since a green economy generates increasing prosperity while preserving the natural ecosystems that sustain our societies and our economies.
The fundamental requirement of the green economy is that it delivers food, water and energy security for all, a requirement challenged by climate and land-use change and its key impact—more volatile and less secure water supplies. Water security underlies all dimensions of human health and well-being, and is fundamental to both food and energy production. This was achieved in all industrial countries, since most have invested early and heavily in the infrastructure, institutions and capacity to manage water and wastewater. The problem remains acute today in many developing and emerging economies, where investments in infrastructure and water management institutions, still are an urgent priority, especially in view of a greener (circular) economy.
In the rural agri-food sector of Romania, water security through irrigation and water supply and wastewater infrastructure is still an objective to be implemented in the future, for a sustainable development.
2. Material and methods
In this paper, we shall resume some of our research in the field of water security and sustainable economic development, as developed in our previous papers "Water Infrastructure and Socio-Economic Development Issues" (Frone Simona, Frone D.F., 2012), "Promoting Access to Water Supply and Sanitation: Issues and Challenges in Romania" (Frone Simona, Frone D.F., 2013) and „Challenges in analyzing correlation between water infrastructure and economic development" (Frone Simona, Frone D.F., 2014).
This time, besides stressing again the importance of water infrastructure for economic development, with the outcomes of our previous studies, we shall try to outline more the importance of water security investments for sustainable development in the food and agriculture sector. We base our analyses on the outcomes and conclusions of other agri-food expert and sustainable water management studies as well as on our own computations and analysis on trends in the demand and use of water in Romanian agriculture.
The period in our analysis of trends covers only the most recent five years (2009-2013), since not approached by the studies cited.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Conceptual and theoretical issues
There are four main mechanisms by which water resources development and management exerts a fundamental role for sustained economic growth and fighting poverty (Grey D. and Sadoff C. W., 2007).
First, water management projects based on a range that typically include major infrastructure projects such as sewer systems, dams and inter-basin transfers will provide benefits to national, regional and local communities, in which all people, including the poor, will benefit.
Second, interventions for development of water resources are of major importance, if directed to fighting poverty; for example, investments to improve water catchment quality will provide livelihoods for the poor, because usually the poorest people live in those environmentally degraded areas.
Third, interventions and other large scale investments for the development of water, such as those aimed at improving performance of utility water users' associations or inter-community development and irrigation departments will benefit the entire population involved, including the poorest.
Fourthly, investment in water services / wastewater - targeted to combat poverty, such as the development of networks and connect to water supply systems, sewage and irrigation settlements and poor population groups, unserved, plays a key role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
We may define „water security" as: the sustainable availability of water quantity and quality acceptable for production, livelihoods and health, coupled with an acceptable level of risk to society related to unpredictable water-related impacts.
Countries should make the initial investment required for regulating water resources and water storage, then for water supply for human settlements and industrial production, food and energy, and therefore will invest in associated institutions needed to manage water resources and the related infrastructure in order to reach a perceived level of water security.
Water security can be achieved with the creation or acquisition of an appropriate level of a mix of infrastructure and water management capacity. Thus, water security is achieved when communities are resistant to the impact of water resources - so that lack of access to water and water related services and vulnerability to the adverse impacts of water (drought, floods, disease, etc.) cannot create significant barriers to growth (Frone Simona, Frone D.F., 2012).
It is considered now that water security is under severe pressure from many sources: the world population explosion, rapid shifts of people from rural to urban areas, the impact of dietary change as countries develop, increasing pollution of water resources, the over-abstraction of groundwater and the significant issues created by climate change.
The model of the S curve we previously analyzed (Frone Simona , Frone D.F. , 2012) was used to describe the correlation between investment in water infrastructure and economic growth and is mainly used by hydrologists to illustrate differences in terms of water security scenarios.
Another methodological approach to water security issues in Romania was our estimation and analysis of the simple cross-county regression equations described in a previous paper, as to estimate and validate the empirical correlation between the development of infrastructure for water supply and sanitation, on the one hand, and economic development (expressed as GDP per capita) at the county regional level in Romania, on the other hand. We have found robust evidence on the positive correlation between the shares of the county population connected to the wastewater sewerage (sanitation) network and regional economic growth.
This eventually supported our endeavors in demonstrating the importance and opportunity of implementing the investments in water infrastructure in Romania, with European Structural and Cohesion funding (Frone Simona, Frone D.F., 2014). However, here again it would be useful to stress the importance of water resource security also with another recent theoretical model which highlights the importance of water as a resource, in a holistic and circular approach of the global economy.
The resource nexus is a conceptual model that illustrates the interconnections between and among different resources (Figure 1); in other words, it visually displays that one (or more) resource is used as an input to produce another resource. For example, water and electricity (for pumping water) are necessary resources for producing food in particular in economies where irrigation-based agriculture prevails (Bleischwitz R. et al., 2013).
The Resource Nexus
Input (Major or Minor Provision of A needed to produce a service from B)
Substitution (A may substitute В for a certain service)
Fig. 1. The global resource nexus model
More efficient production processes and better environmental management systems can significantly reduce pollution and waste, and save water and other resources. This is good for business too, as it can cut operating costs and reduce dependency on raw materials and is the paradigm behind the green (or circular) economy, a system that optimizes the flow of goods and services to get the most out of raw materials and cuts waste to the absolute minimum.
We find the global resource nexus model (Figure 1) as very suggestive for a green (circular) economy model and especially for our topic, since the importance of water security is highlighted. It is obvious that water is an important input for food production as well as for all the other resources (excepting land) figured here by different coloured blocks. But even more important is that the water resources and inputs cannot be substituted in any way, so water is a critical and irreplaceable public good and a basic requirement for sustainable development.
The matter of water security-food security is even better stated and analyzed by Lester Brown: "Not only are there no substitutes for water, but the world needs vast amounts of it to produce food. As adults, each of us drinks nearly 4 liters of water a day in one form or another. But it takes 2,000 liters of water—500 times as much—to produce the food we consume each day. Since food is such an extraordinarily water-intensive product, it comes as no surprise that 70 percent of world water use is for irrigation. Although it is now widely accepted that the world is facing severe water shortages, not everyone realizes that a future of water shortages will also be a future of food shortages" (Brown, L. R., 2012).
The projected global demand for food will increase by 70% by 2050 due to the population growing more numerous and increasing in revenues. While the global demand for food is rising, there are several actors that will critically limit food production: the increased urbanization, the rising prices on inputs, the pressure on water resources and the increased crops and livestock vulnerability to climate change.
Climate change impact on food security in the European Union will be growing. Global warming is expected to generate mixed effects and unevenly distributed across the EU (C0M/2012/0673 final).
Although agriculture has always focused on food security and was a positive motor of economic growth, the increasing concern for the environment in society in recent decades has affected agricultural policies worldwide. Sustainable intensification of agriculture is essential to meet food security under growing water scarcity. For instance, improved irrigation technologies, such as the drip irrigation systems have proved to be more efficient than traditional sprinkler irrigation (Ringler Claudia & Tingju Zhu, 2014).
Global population and income growth predicates higher demand for more, better, and different food products. To meet this demand, the agricultural sector will have to expand irrigation water use.
Yet, at the same time, competition for water resources is expected to intensify and climate change will further stress water availability. Within these constraints, the optimal solution will be to improve the productivity of water in agriculture (WB Water Partnership Program, 2015).
3.2. Water security issues for the sustainable development of Romanian agri-food sector
The importance of water security for the sustainable development of the agri-food sector, as well as for the general rural development in Romania is more and more obvious in the latest developments.
As regarding water, the Romanian hydrological resources are not spread uniformly across the territory or during the year, therefore there are strong annual fluctuations of agricultural production.
Except Danube's water supply, Romania's water resources accounts for an average of only 2660 m3 Water/inhabitant/year, lower than the European average of 4,000 m3 water/inhabitant/year, so Romania belongs to the category of countries with limited water resources and therefore it needs an appropriate water management policy (GOVERNMENT OF ROMANIA, 2007). The sustainable management and development of water infrastructure is therefore one important issue of public and strategic importance.
Although during 2001-2011, Romania had the highest rate of public investment expenditure as a share of GDP (Romania Fiscal Council, 2012), other new EU member countries such as Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia, with lower investment costs, have a better infrastructure quality, which demonstrates the low efficiency of these strategic public works for Romania.
Unfortunately, water infrastructure is a real similarity between Romania and the countries and poor regions of Asia and Africa, considering just the low level of development of water supply and sanitation networks, especially
of the wastewater sewerage and treatment facilities, and hence the relatively low access of the population to these public infrastructure services: nationally, only 56% of the total population is connected to public water supply while less than 50% is connected to wastewater collecting systems, with some regional variations (Frone Simona, Frone D.F., 2014).
Over time there were quantitative and qualitative modifications of the natural hydrological regime in certain areas of the country due to hydrological works, including water catchments, but also due to water pollution. The worst quality of groundwater in Romania is in the rural areas, where the sewerage network is underdeveloped or totally missing and the waste water gets directly into underground. The presence of nitrates high rates in underground waters affected human health in some areas.
This issue of rural-urban disparity of access to water supply and sanitation is very striking in Romania and we consider it to be one of the main features of the Romanian water infrastructure, as well as a major shortcoming for sustainable economic development, given that rural wastewater is simply discharged into the environment, polluting the soil and water (Frone Simona, Frone D.F., 2013).
As regarding the agri-food sector, the too slow progress of the overall national agri-food system, the still large discrepancies and non-convergence between our country's agriculture and that of the other EU countries, the existence of large severe rural poverty areas, as well as the precarity of Romania's population's food security have been signaled and analyzed by the Institute of Agricultural Economics of the Romanian Academy, and thus was proposed an agri-food and rural development strategy of Romania (Otiman P.I. et al, 2014).
The strategic importance of agriculture for the entire national economy should not be limited only to food security of the population. It should also contain to an equal extent its contribution to increasing exports of agricultural food products and services, and the supply of raw and semi-fabricated materials for the vital industries of the economy such as food and processing industries. Of no lesser importance is the role of ecological agriculture in combating pollution effects, ensuring environmental balance and population health (Zaman Gh., 2012).
The vulnerability of Romania in terms of food security, especially in the prolonged economic crisis of recent years, was signaled and analyzed recently (Luca L., 2013).
In one of the chapters in the thesis, also the importance of farm size and technology is stressed, in view of increasing domestic agricultural production as the main factor that influences country's food security. One important conclusion was that the small-scale farms are less efficient and more vulnerable to economic and environmental risk.
The subsistence farms (about 80% of the Romanian farms) play a significant role in food security for the population with small-scale agriculture, where the crop and livestock productions go mainly to self-consumption and sales are only on occasional basis. However, these small farms cannot contribute to the increase of farmers' welfare, many of them being dependent on the agricultural services provided by the owners of agricultural machinery and equipment.
As analyzed by (Alexandri Cecilia, 2014), the self-sufficiency level of farm production in Romania is less than 100% for many important food products such as vegetables, fruits, milk, meat and fish.
Even in cereals, although Romania is one of the important European producers, there are years with significant deficits, due to domestic production instability, generated by weather excesses and the insufficient technological endowment.
Some features of the current development status in the Romanian agriculture, as compared with the most developed EU countries (EU-15) should be reminded (Otiman P.I. et al, 2013):
• the value of the primary production per hectare obtained by the Romanian farmers (cca.800-900 € / ha) is 2-2.5 times lower than the European average (1800-2000 €/ ha);
• the gross value added in the Romanian agriculture is about half of its level in EU-15, which results in a final agricultural production of about 1400-1500€/ha compared to 2400-2700€/ha in EU-15;
• food self-consumption on Romania's subsistence and semi-subsistence farms accounts for 50-90% of farm production (compared to 10-12% in EU-15), which results in a commercial agricultural production value of 400-420€/ha, four times lower compared to the EU-15 average;
• the average capital endowment of a Romanian farmer (350 €) is approx. 25 times lower than the EU-15 average farmer's;
• weak rehabilitation of the irrigation systems (about 30-35% of the total irrigated area) and low functionality, on an area of 200.000-300.000 ha/year (8-10% of the total arranged area, in 2000-2009);
• underdeveloped drinking water supply system (more than half of the rural dwellings are not connected to the public water supply network, only 26% of the rural inhabitants having access in 2013).
The same study cited above (Otiman P.I. et al., 2013) showed that, in Romania, non-performance of annual agricultural production is in the first place the result of the still too high dependence of agricultural production on the annual weather conditions as the irrigation systems are degraded and non-functional in a large part, the farm endowment with irrigation equipment is deficient, the irrigation water cost is high and the agricultural technologies in use are obsolete, with low consumption of inputs from the category of inputs that lead to performance.
The drought, which is mostly frequent, adversely impacts agricultural production, mainly in the Romanian Plain, Dobrogea and Moldova, where the largest irrigation systems are found, built up in the period 1960-1990, which are non-functional or have not been used for about 20 years.
Indeed, according to our own computations, as based on data from the NSI (Tempus-on-line), the trend of nonfunction of irrigation systems in Romania has continued, so that in the period 2009-2013, (Figure 2) the share of the actually-irrigated agricultural area (at least one watering) was less than 10% (5,7% in 2013).
Fig. 2 Total arranged and actually irrigated agricultural areas in Romania (ha), 2009-2013
However, the total amount of water abstracted by agriculture (including forestry and fishing) in Romania, although representing about 20% of the total water abstraction in Romania, is quite important, amounting to a volume of about 1000 million cubic meters/year, which is quite similar to the amount of water abstraction for the very activity of public water collection, treatment and supply (Figure 3).
Fig. 3 Water abstracted in Romania, for treatment and public supply (seriesl) and for agriculture (series2), 2009-2013 (million cubic meters)
This shows again the quite significant water demand of the Romanian agriculture, consequently the importance of water security for a sustainable agri-food sector development.
Therefore, we strongly agree with the strategic policy recommendations that, in the Romanian rural sector, a sustainable economic development can be achieved, first of all, only if medium and long-term investments are made in the consolidation of agricultural holdings and agro-processing units, in advanced technologies, in the adequate equipment of the agricultural territory through irrigation, desiccation, anti-erosion systems, anti-flooding systems, etc. The direct financial support from European and national funds should be targeted for reaching these sustainable rural development premises (Otiman P.I. et al., 2014).
Moreover, we also believe that increasing the water security by greater endowment and access to irrigation and water supply and sewerage sanitation systems in the rural areas may also foster the transition to a green economy, eventually by increasing the quality of the rural groundwater resources and by the possibility to recycle wastewater in irrigation systems. Especially those categories of agri-food where Romania is not self-sufficient (vegetables, fruit etc.) would benefit from extended irrigation use.
In view of a transition to a green (circular) economy, the investments in water security systems (including also wastewater treatment plants) in Romania are of critical importance. Properly treated wastewaters can be reused for a lot of applications: aquaculture, industry, irrigations, reusing in the residential areas, for recreation and swimming and regeneration of the water resources (Huertas E. et al, 2008).
In the EU, in southern Europe, for example, reclaimed wastewater is used predominantly in agricultural irrigation (44% of projects) and urban or environmental applications (37% of projects), while in northern Europe environmental applications predominate (51%) (Sato T.et al., 2013).
Recovery of the phosphate from wastewater and sludge is very important for the future, as Yoshida et al. (2013) explained the importance of phosphorus recovery from the wastewater treatment plants sludge, since it is a non-renewable and non-substitutable resource. The development and implementation of such technologies will be positive to environment, soils regeneration and agriculture.
While there are many possible uses, agriculture is the principal beneficiary of reclaimed water, with use for this purpose reported in around 50 countries. Various figures are quoted on the extent of agricultural irrigation with reclaimed wastewater, with estimates ranging between 20 million to 45 million hectares worldwide (Sato T. et al., 2013).
Wastewater could actually become a vector of both water security and food security, since it may act as a:
• drought-resistant source of water (especially for agriculture or industry);
• source of nutrients for agriculture;
• soil conditioner;
• source of energy/heat.
Indeed, a paradigm shift is now required in water politics in the world over not only to prevent further damage to sensitive ecosystems and the aquatic environment, but also to emphasize that wastewater is a resource (in terms of water and also nutrient for agricultural use) whose effective management is essential for future water security (UN Water, 2015).
4. Conclusions and recommendations
The programs and projects for Romania's agriculture have the sustainable rural development at their core, as a sustainable economic growth factor, which presupposes a strong rural economy, based on modern rural infrastructure, an adequate technical endowment of the rural territory, of rural localities and dwellings, through the use of renewable local natural resources (from the rural area) in the economic circuit, environment and landscape protection and, as an effect of these, reaching an acceptable rural living standard, through severe poverty attenuation and alleviation in the rural areas (Otiman P.I. et al, 2014).
In agreement with and considering the importance of these issues, we aimed here to stress more on the importance of investment in water infrastructure and irrigation in the rural areas of Romania, to achieve the water security required for a sustainable agri-food as well as rural development.
Moreover, we believe and recommend that water supply and sanitation and irrigation systems development and management should be integrated and treated wastewater be reclaimed, as directions of development in view of a green (circular) economy.
We support the reclamation of properly advanced treated wastewater in irrigation systems, in Romania to be implemented more in the future but only as according to the EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).
These actions are critical now when the EU needs to focus on green growth and become more resource efficient (including water) to achieve a sustainable recovery from the current economic and environmental crisis, adapt to climate change and build resilience to disasters (C0M/2012/0673 final).
Future research will be dedicated to the further development and implementing of related programs and policies of promoting water resource efficiency and supporting the shift towards a low carbon and climate resilient economy in agriculture, food and forestry sectors, according to the National Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 in Romania.
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