Analisi dell'efficienza tecnica ed ecologica dei metodi di tariffazione diretti ed indiretti dell'acqua irrigua

Direct water pricing, based on volumetric method, is said to be more efficient than other pricing methods. However, it requires high management and monitoring costs. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the relative efficiency of different indirect water pricing methods. For this purpose, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), is performed on the simulation of different types of pricing schemes on representative farms, located in Italy (Apulia region). This study highlights variations in agriculture incomes, water consumption, agriculture employment and environmental impact, resulting from the change in water pricing schemes. According to our results, by applying the indirect water pricing on irrigated surface, or on irrigated crops-specific inputs, the loss in terms of efficiency is negligible, while the indirect water pricing based on irrigation outputs causes some significant losses.