French mediterranean agriculture is already facing climate change severly (extreme heat waves like in june 2019 & drought). If vine has long been cropped without water, back up irrigation turns to be a systematic at least straightforward climate change adaptation option in the area. This conducts more and more land to be equipped with irrigation. In this context, there is a major challenge to follow/control this development both to safeguard water resources in the long term, to ensure justice among farmers (if water is still not scarce, public funds to subsidize irrigation development are) by analysing and discussing the conditions of irrigation adoption and water allocation.

 A new CAP cycle will start in 2020 and with it new rural development funds that will support climate change adaptation of agriculture. To ensure a robust, resilient and fair development of water access and water use, stakeholders have to discuss and exchange on criteria of water efficiency, justice and value. First, the ecosystem of stakeholders around the agriculture value chain and water management will be set up as a preliminary step to organize the Talanoa dialogues (an actual project of INRAE is already consolidating the stakeholder network on wine & vine in the area - MEDCLIV). Then data will be collected on actual and potential water uses, together with agro-pedo-climatic data. Simple hydro-economic models will be developed to assess the trade-off between different strategies of irrigation (more or less land and more or less water) on local / remote value creation, jobs and distribution/fairness criteria. This model will help initiate the discussion of the Talanoa dialogues to discuss & deliberate on the development of the access and allocation of water with variable public and private financial resources. This ecosystem of innovation will ensure a sustainable and resilient climate change adaptation for the Herault agriculture that will ensure shared knowledge, capacity building on the use and value of water and alternatives for stakeholders and the territory.

https://talanoawater.com/