Price induced water irrigation: Unraveling conflicts and synergies between European agricultural and water policies

The 2003 CAP reform considerably affects cropping patterns in European agriculture. At the same time the imperatives of the forthcoming Water Framework Directive (WFD) is expected to modify irrigation decisions especially in Southern Europe where irrigated agriculture utilizes about 70-80% of total water. This paper examines the combined effect of CAP reform and the application of likely volumetric water pricing on water demand by taking into account three drivers of change, namely extensive margin changes, intensive margin changes and irrigation technology shift. For low rates of water prices, CAP reform contradicts the WFD objectives since it leads to cropping patterns that consume more water resources. On the contrary, as water prices increase, decoupling and water pricing display a synergistic effect on water conservation. Finally, decoupling substantially increases the efficiency of water pricing in terms of water conservation. As a result, the post CAP reform regime clearly dominates the prior CAP reform regime when an index of value for money water conservation is examined.