Several activities of high relevance for the EU Water Initiative have been conducted in the Flumendosa-Mulargia basin so far (development of models for management at the basin scale, optimization of supplies, conducting quality and quantity assessment, adoption of wastewater reuse, evaluation of environmental impacts, management of demand). These activities can be considered important demonstration cases to help finding solutions to water stress within the framework of European strategies.  

Without any doubt the management of agricultural waters based on a test-site / stakeholder driven approach meets with the main goals of the European Water Framework Directive of including societal and stakeholder dimension in the water management co-decision process. 

Focusing on the management of agricultural waters proves to be a common issue throughout the whole Euro-Mediterranean region, in particular to all the test-sites located in the Mediterranean area (Portugal, Italy, Tunisia, Morocco).

The whole Euro-Mediterranean region suffers of water scarcity and agriculture is the main water users across many Mediterranean countries (even up to 75 % of natural waters is used by agriculture). At the same time, water scarcity inducing water stress constitutes one of the main limiting factor to the economic improvement and the increase of competitiveness in some areas, particularly in Southern-Mediterranean. Linking Test Sites through similar case-studies in the Euro-Mediterranean region, focusing on agricultural water management, meets with the main objectives of the EU-Barcelona Process.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the most important and expensive EU policies. CAP has been criticized for failing to take environmental factors sufficiently into account (G. C. Zalidis et al., 2004 – Journal of Environmental Management – 70,325-321). An important step towards integrating environmental requirements into agricultural policy was the 1992 CAP reforms, which promised the important innovation of accompanying measures to cover agriculture together with environment. These measures, while opening new opportunities for farmers, provided a response to environmental problems within Europe. Moreover, the Regulation 2079/92/EEC, constituted a first and positive step towards integration of environmental components into agricultural policy. The new reform seeks to benefit farmers, consumers, environmental resources like waters and the EU economy in general. Addressing agricultural water management is certainly a relevant action to improving the integration of environment (in this case: water and linked components)) into CAP reform and the Regulation 2079/92/EEC, and – to a certain extend – to enhancing clear share on intents between CAP and the European WFD.

One particular long-term issue to be further explored and discussed in the future are the consequences of climate change for the Water Framework Directive. Assessment methods for a good status, e.g. typology and reference conditions for ecological status classification, will have to be further developed. For this, the proposed case study contributes in a way that identifying minimum flow requirements supports the definition of reference conditions for classifying the ecological status.