Water use efficiency of crops cultivated in the Mediterranean region: Review and analysis

Improvement of water use efficiency (WUE) of field crops in the Mediterranean region is an imperative imposed by the critical situation of water resources of the region, as well as by the demographical increment. This review reports the experimental data concerning WUE of 16 species cultivated in the region. The species include cereals, leguminous, horticultural and industrial crops. This review however underlines that WUE data of fruit trees are lacking, despite they represent one of the main productions of the Mediterranean agriculture.

In this region, the large range of WUE values observed, for the same species, can be ascribed mainly to: (i) fertilizers and water management (water regime, mineral supply and water quality); (ii) plant factors (species, variety and sensitivity of growth stage to the stress); and (iii) environmental factors (climate, atmospheric pollution, soil texture and climate change). The conclusion highlights the actual gap concerning WUE in the Mediterranean region. This gap will constitute a field of research designated to ameliorate WUE of agriculture in this region.