Water and agriculture: scientific issues and questions

The content of the module is structured as follows: -A series of lectures: 1-Water resources and food security, 2-Environmental impact of agriculture on water resources and aquatic environments, 3-Current advances and challenges in agronomic research for the optimization of water consumption by plants, and 4-Management of water demand in agriculture. -Tutorials: Food security and prospective scenario. -A prospective work in small groups will be implemented to produce scenarios related to the state of water resources and food production on a case study of a southern country.

The objective of this EU is to offer a synthetic and global vision of the issues at stake at the intersection of water resource management and food, knowing that agriculture consumes 70% of water resources and that irrigated agriculture alone covers 40% of world food needs. Meeting the anticipated food needs by 2050 will require agricultural intensification on a global scale. This will come up against the effective availability of water resources and the quantitative and qualitative impacts that it will have on these resources.

Hourly volumes* :

            CM : 12

            TD : 6

            TP : 9

            Terrain:

Review: 0%.

Continuous assessment: 100%.

Each group of students (4-5) will write a synthetic report presenting the prospective scenario that the group has arrived at and justifying its hypotheses and choices. The report and the spreadsheets will be evaluated and graded.

Water balance, agricultural water, diffuse pollution, irrigation, water for food