**Author details**

*Irrigation - Water Productivity and Operation, Sustainability and Climate Change*

failures of wastewater treatment facilities worldwide.

**6. Irrigation challenge: welcome to the Anthropocene**

The need for capturing, storing, cleaning, and redirecting freshwater resources in efforts to increase water availability even with irregular river flows and unpredictable rainfall has been one of the main challenges of humanity [55]. Resulting impacts on water productivity and security schemes (which requires waterworks from storage and distribution such as dams, pipelines, canals, and water transfers) [56] means that the water cycle has been increasingly controlled by human activities and this was the hallmark of the new geological epoch called the "Anthropocene" [57]. This term is currently used (and discussed) to encompass different geological, ecological, sociological, and behavioral dynamics in recent earth history. The origins of the concept, its terminology, and its socio-political implications have also been widely discussed across the scientific community [58]. In fact, for some authors, the commitment to define a new geological period responds to the *hydrocentric* approach that emerged over the past two decades [59, 60], which focused on managing water resources as a natural water environment duly protected. Some evidences suggest, however, that what are needed are rather *hydrosupportive* approaches in which water management is performed to achieve social goals, which may include, among other factors, the ability to sustain environmental functions [61]. The

sustainability (by addressing environmental issues) in an integrated way. The first approach is focused on putting more attention to understanding current water management and promoting transition to more adaptive water regimes that take into account environmental, technological, economic, institutional, and cultural characteristics of river basins. This implies a paradigm shift in water management from a prediction and control to a management as a social-learning approach [45]. The second approach has been focused on water availability. That is, the general decreasing trend in water availability and the need for sustainable use of available water resources have led regional and national governments worldwide to seek alternative water sources [46], putting special attention to wastewater reuse and water desalination. The first one is not a "new" water source, but rather a way to waste able to be used for a new water demand. It differs to increase water supply measures such as seawater desalination, which in effect includes a new input to the water cycle [47]. Both concepts, water reuse and seawater desalination, are limited by different key barriers. The first barrier is that their management is more complex than the management of conventional water resources, but also their cost is more expensive than the cost of "environmental" water sources—rivers—due to its conveyance, storage, and distribution in dedicated network infrastructure [48]. The second barrier is that both the public and farmers negatively percept alternative water sources by highlighting their environmental and health risks instead of their benefits (especially in the case of wastewater resources) [49–52]. Furthermore, although there are rules and regulations clearly focused on ensuring standards on food security, yuck factor currently justify the negative to use alternative water resources [53]. It should be noted that addressing the last two barriers are not solely related to technical issues, but to social issues. According to this and irrespective of scientific and engineering based considerations, farmers' opposition and public rejection has the potential to cause water reuse and water desalination projects to fail, before, during, or after their execution [54]. In fact, reuse and desalinated water schemes may face public opposition resulting from a combination of prejudiced beliefs, fear, attitudes, lack of knowledge, and general distrust, which, on the whole, is often not unjustified, judging by the frequent (and highly publicized)

**4**

Sandra Ricart\*, Jorge Olcina and Antonio M. Rico University of Alicante, Spain

\*Address all correspondence to: sandra.ricart@ua.es

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
