Heatwaves – There is an urgent need to reduce our water flows

– It is urgent to reduce our water flows

Part of agriculture is using drip irrigation to limit volumes. For their part, cities are thinking about water management, and no longer evacuation.

Posted today at 09:56

Adèle Airaud, agricultural engineer and manager of Domaine du Tilley SA in Ardon (VS), uses drip irrigation for small fruits, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries.

YVAIN GENEVAY / TAMEDIA

It is not yet the “country of thirst” so feared by Captain Haddock, but the early heat wave is beginning to cause here and there in the crops what is called water stress. As dry periods are set to repeat themselves, the management and reuse of water are now essential, as the Federal Council repeated on Wednesday. However, there is a lack of precise data on water consumption, particularly in agriculture, a gap that the Swissirrigationinfo project will have to fill in the years to come.

It is known, however, that the areas irrigated for vegetables increased by 24% between 2010 and 2016, and that “crops that are already irrigated today will need an additional amount of water of around 40% by at the end of the century”, according to a report by the Federal Office for the Environment published last year.