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Box 4.1  Investments in water use efficiency in agriculture and the rebound effect

Increasing production efficiency is an important aim of European policies. Agricultural approaches such as precision farming and sustainable intensification promote more efficient natural resource use. However, resource efficiency improvements do not always translate into resource savings. Instead, some or all of the saved resource may be directed to other uses, offsetting savings and, in some cases, resulting in higher net resource consumption. This is known as the rebound effect or the Jevons’ paradox .

In agriculture, there is substantial evidence of rebound effects following investments in efficiency improvements in irrigation infrastructure. Saved water is often redirected to other uses, for instance more water consuming crops or an expansion of irrigated land. The rebound effect may also be led by changed consumer behaviour, resulting in higher demand and resource use.

Although less documented, the rebound effect may also exist for other resources consumed by agriculture, such as nutrients, pesticides or energy use.

Key tools to mitigate the impact of the rebound effect include adopting adequate accounting procedures of resource flows and putting clear limits to resource use at hydrologically relevant spatial scale (river basins).

Sources :Ward and Pulido-Velazquez, 2008; Dumont et al., 2013; Gómez and Pérez-Blanco, 2014; Berbel et al., 2015; Paul et al., 2019