**5. Conclusion**

Water is the most limiting factor for crop production in arid and semiarid areas. Appropriate water resource management will undoubtedly enhance crop production and accomplish sustainable development. These objectives could be achieved by adopting the following water management strategies:

• Enhancing agricultural water use efficiency by avoiding water losses at all scales, adopting efficient irrigation scheduling, and using environment adapted crops and varieties, etc.

**151**

**Author details**

Adel Zeggaf Tahiri1

\*, G. Carmi<sup>2</sup>

1 Agri.Environ.Engineering SARL, Tangier, Morocco

\*Address all correspondence to: zeggaf.adel@yahoo.co.uk

Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey

provided the original work is properly cited.

*Promising Water Management Strategies for Arid and Semiarid Environments*

• The use of nonconventional water resources, i.e., wastewater, brackish water, and seawater along with the corresponding resistant or tolerant species to

Certainly, no single strategy is currently able to thrive by itself in arid environments. Each one is adapted to a physical and social environment, as well as aridity intensity. Sometimes combined water management strategies could improve crop production in water-scarce areas. Nevertheless, in these environments, the search for better water management strategies and water use habits should be a priority for

As the world population grows and climate change consequences worsen, water scarcity will intensively affect some regions more than others. North Africa and West Asia countries, among others, will be dramatically affected, as seen above. It is the responsibility of these countries to make the bulk of research in the field for no one undergoes their level of water scarcity. In this review, we showed a set of strategies, in which combination and application greatly improve plantation and water management in arid and/or desert areas. Some strategies are still not widely implemented, and others are under investigation. However, for a particular water management strategy to be successful, it should be economically viable, respectful of social values, and environmentally sustainable. The search of innovative solutions aiming for better integrated water resource management is a big challenge for National Agricultural

Research Systems (NARS), the private sector, and the society as a whole.

and M. Ünlü3

2 French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands,

3 Department of Agricultural Structures and Irrigation, Faculty of Agriculture,

© 2020 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,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Midreshet Ben Gurion, Israel

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87103*

produce forage and food

both research institutions and society.

• Water conservation for better crop production

*Promising Water Management Strategies for Arid and Semiarid Environments DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87103*


Certainly, no single strategy is currently able to thrive by itself in arid environments. Each one is adapted to a physical and social environment, as well as aridity intensity. Sometimes combined water management strategies could improve crop production in water-scarce areas. Nevertheless, in these environments, the search for better water management strategies and water use habits should be a priority for both research institutions and society.

As the world population grows and climate change consequences worsen, water scarcity will intensively affect some regions more than others. North Africa and West Asia countries, among others, will be dramatically affected, as seen above. It is the responsibility of these countries to make the bulk of research in the field for no one undergoes their level of water scarcity. In this review, we showed a set of strategies, in which combination and application greatly improve plantation and water management in arid and/or desert areas. Some strategies are still not widely implemented, and others are under investigation. However, for a particular water management strategy to be successful, it should be economically viable, respectful of social values, and environmentally sustainable. The search of innovative solutions aiming for better integrated water resource management is a big challenge for National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), the private sector, and the society as a whole.
