About

Drought Adapt is an initiative taken by members of water@leeds and partners to systematically collect data on water and energy management across irrigation associations in Spain. Embedding data collection efforts within irrigation associations provides an opportunity for direct engagement of end-users in informing evidence-based policies, and for long-lasting impact in water management. 

Climate change is expected to increase the recurrence and unpredictability of droughts and other climatic events. In the agricultural sector, the impact of those events raises concerns about meeting the demands for water and food in the future. While most of the adaptation literature has focused on the factors that explain the willingness and capacity of individual farmers, much less understood are collective responses and their coexistence with individual responses at local levels.  

Drought Adapt is a long-term effort to systematically collect data on collective and individual water and energy management across irrigation associations in Spain. The Drought Adapt database was established in 2014 in collaboration with ICTA-UAB and The National Federation of Irrigators Communities in Spain (FENACORE).  

Drought Adapt thus aims to generate impact by improving the capacity to institutionalise data collection efforts within irrigation communities, setting the ground for bottom-up participation in the design of evidence-based water policies in the advent of climate change.  

Check our Resources page for more materials and information.  

So far, projects under Drought Adapt include the ‘Coproducing information on climate change adaptation across irrigation associations in Spain’ Impact Acceleration Account project funded by the UK ESRC via the Leeds Social Sciences Institute.