6.4 Farm
99
W bX values in such a way that favours higher values for the four full Sefficiencies. As also mentioned in FIW4a, water managers can act as social catalysts for
change in the direction of sustainable development. A concrete scenario assumes
that this agricultural area is in a water scarce region and we may want to decrease
Consumption (ET) by 10% (W bET stays the same) and decrease water allocated to
the farm (VA) by the same quantity. This is a rather prevalent idea among the water
experts and professionals, but in our case, this leads to lower performance for the
WUS, for example, making cMacroSE worse off by about 5p.p (i.e., 66.5%). This,
of course, should not be accepted. However, there is the idea that the decrease in ET
is mostly due to high decrease in evaporation, and moderate increase in transpiration
(hence yield), which causes an increase in the benefits for the farmer, i.e., an increase
in W bET . This seemingly simple and attractive statement is actually very complex.
For example, if we increase W bET from 0.7 to 0.72 (about 3% increase in benefits),
we still get a lower cMacroSE of about 3p.p, which again makes the decrease in
ET unacceptable. Furthermore, by decreasing VA, we get less RP and RF, which in
turn make trade-offs less obvious, particularly if RP was recharging groundwater.
Additionally, if the system is for drip irrigation, there are the problems presented by
Burt et al. (Irrigation Performance Measures—Efficiency and Uniformity 1997) and
others (also see FIW1a). Definitely we are not against drip systems but simply highlighting the very complex nature of the trade-offs as can be verified by their patterns
presented in Sect. 4.4. Of course, as mentioned in the first example of this Chapter,
real water saving occurs only by decreasing Consumption, but this is acceptable if
Sefficiency stays the same, increases or remains Green (Sect. 5.3).
Equation (4.16) gives a CE value of 46.5%, which is closer to MicroSE b of 57.5%.
However, its very low value relative to Meso and Macro is again another proof of the
flaw of CE (Sect. 4.5). Of course, those who utilize CE have a louder voice in our
institutions and organisations for urgent investments, but years after implementation
it may prove to be detrimental to the development of the (water scarce) region.
6.5 Water, Energy, Food
Water-energy-food (WEF) nexus is intensifying due to water scarcity and pollution,
energy pollution and food insecurity. There are various reasons for these issues, such
as, population, climate, economy, technology and governance. Here, we present
an example by adopting some of the material from Haie (Sefficiency (Sustainable
efficiency) of Water-Energy-Food Entangled Systems 2016) including the schematic
of our WUS—Fig. 6.3, which is a simple one to one relationship of Fig. 2.1.
WEF is a complex system of systems with many changing parts. In order to
analyse it in terms of water and using Sefficiency to quantify its performance, we
need to associate food and energy to the three Pillars of a WUS as shown in Fig. 6.3
and explained below.
We know that as crops have better access to more water (within limits), they
transpire more and consequently produce more yield (Perry et al. 2009). Most of ET
99
W bX values in such a way that favours higher values for the four full Sefficiencies. As also mentioned in FIW4a, water managers can act as social catalysts for
change in the direction of sustainable development. A concrete scenario assumes
that this agricultural area is in a water scarce region and we may want to decrease
Consumption (ET) by 10% (W bET stays the same) and decrease water allocated to
the farm (VA) by the same quantity. This is a rather prevalent idea among the water
experts and professionals, but in our case, this leads to lower performance for the
WUS, for example, making cMacroSE worse off by about 5p.p (i.e., 66.5%). This,
of course, should not be accepted. However, there is the idea that the decrease in ET
is mostly due to high decrease in evaporation, and moderate increase in transpiration
(hence yield), which causes an increase in the benefits for the farmer, i.e., an increase
in W bET . This seemingly simple and attractive statement is actually very complex.
For example, if we increase W bET from 0.7 to 0.72 (about 3% increase in benefits),
we still get a lower cMacroSE of about 3p.p, which again makes the decrease in
ET unacceptable. Furthermore, by decreasing VA, we get less RP and RF, which in
turn make trade-offs less obvious, particularly if RP was recharging groundwater.
Additionally, if the system is for drip irrigation, there are the problems presented by
Burt et al. (Irrigation Performance Measures—Efficiency and Uniformity 1997) and
others (also see FIW1a). Definitely we are not against drip systems but simply highlighting the very complex nature of the trade-offs as can be verified by their patterns
presented in Sect. 4.4. Of course, as mentioned in the first example of this Chapter,
real water saving occurs only by decreasing Consumption, but this is acceptable if
Sefficiency stays the same, increases or remains Green (Sect. 5.3).
Equation (4.16) gives a CE value of 46.5%, which is closer to MicroSE b of 57.5%.
However, its very low value relative to Meso and Macro is again another proof of the
flaw of CE (Sect. 4.5). Of course, those who utilize CE have a louder voice in our
institutions and organisations for urgent investments, but years after implementation
it may prove to be detrimental to the development of the (water scarce) region.
6.5 Water, Energy, Food
Water-energy-food (WEF) nexus is intensifying due to water scarcity and pollution,
energy pollution and food insecurity. There are various reasons for these issues, such
as, population, climate, economy, technology and governance. Here, we present
an example by adopting some of the material from Haie (Sefficiency (Sustainable
efficiency) of Water-Energy-Food Entangled Systems 2016) including the schematic
of our WUS—Fig. 6.3, which is a simple one to one relationship of Fig. 2.1.
WEF is a complex system of systems with many changing parts. In order to
analyse it in terms of water and using Sefficiency to quantify its performance, we
need to associate food and energy to the three Pillars of a WUS as shown in Fig. 6.3
and explained below.
We know that as crops have better access to more water (within limits), they
transpire more and consequently produce more yield (Perry et al. 2009). Most of ET