Effect of irrigation water quotas on the efficiency of water use in vegetable farms in northeastern Algeria: towards a more rewarding greenhouse growing of water resources

Amine Oulmane, Aymen Frija, Fatima Brabez. (1/12/2016). Effect of irrigation water quotas on the efficiency of water use in vegetable farms in northeastern Algeria: towards a more rewarding greenhouse growing of water resources. New Medit, 15 (4), pp. 72-81.

Abstract

The objective of this study is to calculate the technical and water use efficiency in the irrigated scheme Jijel-Tahir, East of Algeria, using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The DEA was also used to simulate the effect of different levels of water quotas on the improvement of these indicators. The first part of the paper presents a typology of farms in the study area based on the method of principal component analysis combined with a hierarchical ascending classification. The results show that the average technical efficiency of the farmers in the sample is about 80% while the average water use efficiency is around 61%. The application of quotas for water use may lead to improving the irrigation water use efficiency by up to 15%.