ABSTRACT
Abstract In Europe, Italy has the greatest amount of land equipped for irrigation, amounting to 3.6 million hectares. Irrigation in Italy is carried out in districts of drainage and irrigation by boards called Land Reclamation Consortia. The system adopted by the Consortia to share the costs of irrigation between farmers is that of fixing irrigation rates directly, depending on the benefits the farmer receives. Irrigation benefits and different forms of irrigation rates are explained in this paper. Keywords: irrigation rates, Land reclamation Consortia, monomial and binomial rates, pressurised or flow irrigation, supply of water, water use optimisation.
