Application of the Pressure-State-Response Framework for Measuring Groundwater Sustainability. Case Study: Campo de Cartagena (SE Spain)

English Abstract:

In arid and semi-arid areas in which irrigated agriculture prevails, a sustainable management is difficult to achieve. The Campo de Cartagena area in the Murcia region (SE Spain) is an emblematic case of the hydrological and environmental changes caused by the intensive use of groundwater for agriculture in Mediterranean areas. It is a 1440 km² coastal plain where the climate is semiarid with an average temperature of 18˚C and an average rainfall of about 300 mm per year. The economy of the area relies on the agro-industrial sector with crops covering 1/3 of the total surface. Due to the low precipitation rate and a lack of permanent surface water, intensive irrigated agriculture has been historically and mainly supported by groundwater extraction from the aquifer system.

Since the introduction of the concept of sustainable development in the Brundtland report in the late last century, many scientists have recently turned to work on the objective measurement of sustainability through indexes. Applying these indices to the water resources management, it could be assessed the current state of them and they serve as an aid to decision-making by the competent authorities. Several issues impact the groundwater sustainability of an aquifer, such as hydrogeological, socioeconomical and environmental aspects. However, they are often treated separately, and not as an integrated process. The aim of this study is to integrate these issues and develop an index in order to assess the groundwater sustainability in a pressure-state-response framework. The proposed methodology could be extrapolated to many semi-arid basins with hydrological, environmental, social and political conditions similar to the case study.