The increasing demand for solar-powered irrigation systems in agriculture has spurred a race for projects as it potentially offers a cost-effective and sustainable energy solution to off-grid farmers while helping food production and sustaining livelihoods. As a result, countries such as Morocco ...
Closas, Alvar
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Rap., E.
,
[Solar-based groundwater pumping for irrigation: Sustainability, policies, and limitations]
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Solar-based groundwater pumping for irrigation: Sustainability, policies, and limitations
This article explores the creation of new groundwater-based irrigation communities as a result of the internal colonisation projects of Franco’s government in the 1950s in La Mancha, Central Spain. The literature on Spain’s hydraulic mission has mainly focused on the use and mobilisation of large...
Closas, Alvar
,
[Groundwater, the state, and the creation of irrigation communities in Llanos del Caudillo, Spain]
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Groundwater, the state, and the creation of irrigation communities in Llanos del Caudillo, Spain
This study examines the socioeconomic features that underpin the expansion of groundwater-dependent irrigation in Northern State, Sudan. Groundwater development in the region serves as an economic lifeline given the poor Nile-based irrigation infrastructure and future changes in Nile hydrology. G...
Fragaszy, S.
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Closas, Alvar
,
[Cultivating the desert: irrigation expansion and groundwater abstraction in northern state, Sudan]
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Cultivating the desert: irrigation expansion and groundwater abstraction in northern state, Sudan
The ‘silent revolution’ is a phenomenon describing the individualistic behaviour of farmers in the adoption of intensive groundwater abstraction technologies, which in some cases has led to groundwater over-abstraction and environmental degradation in semiarid areas such as La Mancha, Spain. Howe...
Closas, Alvar
,
[Norias, boreholes and the role of the state during the groundwater ‘silent revolution’ in La Mancha, Spain]
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Norias, boreholes and the role of the state during the groundwater ‘silent revolution’ in La Mancha, Spain
With decreasing aquifer levels, increasing groundwater pollution, inequitable access, and generally poor management outcomes, better groundwater governance has been put forward as a recipe to address these challenges worldwide. Existing recommendations focus on improved legal frameworks, monitori...
This paper assesses a case of co-management of groundwater between the state of Texas, pushing for the rationalisation of groundwater management, and local (mainly farming) communities organised in Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCDs), which are protective of their private groundwater rights...
Closas, Alvar
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Molle, Francois
,
[Chronicle of a demise foretold: state vs. local groundwater management in Texas and the high plains aquifer system]
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Chronicle of a demise foretold: state vs. local groundwater management in Texas and the high plains aquifer system
The Nile Delta of Egypt is known for its large irrigated area supplied with water diverted from the Nile River, with a limited use of groundwater, largely for domestic and industrial use. Official statistics for the whole delta indicate that there are a few thousand individual wells used for agri...
El-Agha, Doaa E.
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Closas, Alvar
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Molle, Francois
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[Below the radar: the boom of groundwater use in the central part of the Nile Delta in Egypt]
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Below the radar: the boom of groundwater use in the central part of the Nile Delta in Egypt
Avoiding the negative effects of intensive groundwater resource use is challenging, especially when the interactions and causal pathways between biophysical and socioeconomic processes are complex, and when users, management, and regulatory bodies are spatially dispersed. The plain of Haouaria, i...
Mekki, I.
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Ghazouani, Wafa
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Closas, Alvar
,
Molle, Francois
,
[Perceptions of groundwater degradation and mitigation responses in the Haouaria region in Tunisia]
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Perceptions of groundwater degradation and mitigation responses in the Haouaria region in Tunisia
Faced with severe groundwater depletion, many governments have opted to increase the power of the state. Despite calls for more inclusive governance and a role for groundwater users, modes of governance have tended to continue to rely on a diversity of policy tools and state-run strategies in the...