Estimating the Economic Impact of Climate Change on Agricultural Water Management Indicators

Climate change has been strongly dealt with in the literature on the economy in recent decades. In many semi-arid regions of the world, issues related to climate change including the scarcity of water resources are crucial for consideration in overcoming obstacles to development. The value of water increases and presents itself as a quantitative and qualitative constraint to its domestic, industrial and, particularly, agricultural use. Given the multi-dimensional and multi-scalar nature of climate change, this research proposes an integrated agronomic, economic and hydrologic modelling for the Tadla sub-basin in Morocco to assess the potential economic impacts of climate change on agricultural water management in this region. This tool permits to predict inter-annual variations of selected socio-economic water management indicators from 2014 to 2050. The simulated climate scenarios include the RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenario, taking into account the main crops, water resources and the socio-economic context of the study area. The results show that climate change can have an impact in reducing the total agricultural profit calculated across the Tadla sub-basin (by about -0.34% and -0.44% each year according to RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 climate scenarios, respectively) and in increasing irrigation water shadow price progressively. Overall, this research helps to improve understanding of the potential economic impact of climate change and to guide stakeholders in their choices in terms of future adaptation policies.