The Role of Irrigation Efficiency in the Implementation of Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Jujuy Province of Argentin

Climate change and impending population growth threaten the sustainability of the globe. The Least Developed countries (LDCs) are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and are projected to triple their population in the next 75 years. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been developed as a concept to mitigate the environmental damages caused by traditional agricultural practices, provide adaptive tools in response to changing environmental conditions and provide increased agricultural production and improved livelihoods for farmers in the LDCs. This study analyzed water availability and consumption in the Jujuy Province of Argentina, based on three scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and projected climate conditions derived from eight global circulation models for the year 2065. This study provided a generalizable methodology for calculating irrigation deliveries according to monthly evapotranspiration rates and crop coefficients, which is a key adaptive tool of CSA and an important addition to resilience theory. A key result from this study is that the Jujuy Province of Argentina could be water secure in 2065 should stakeholders adopt aggressive CSA practices and measures.