1. Introduction
Globally, the agriculture sector consumes about 70% of global freshwater withdrawals [
1], and around 90% of global groundwater withdrawals [
2]. Irrigated land constitutes about 20% of total cultivated land and contributes 40% of global annual food production [
3]. A huge amount of water is lost during its distribution and application, resulting in low water-use efficiency [
4,
5]. About 35% of irrigation water is lost because of conveyance, farm distribution, and field application losses [
6]. Additionally, climate change is expected to exacerbate the existing water-related problems. Evidence suggests that climate change will affect the availability, distribution, and quality of water [
7]. On the other hand, polluted water is another example of water with potential future uses being irreparably lost. In many countries, water pollution due to agriculture is of growing concern [
8]. It poses serious risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health, and threatens biodiversity [
9]. Moreover, about 36 million hectares of land are under wastewater cultivation worldwide [
10], and around 10% of the world’s population consumes agricultural products produced with wastewater irrigation [
11]. Poor quality irrigation water contains pathogens and heavy metals, and can cause potentially harmful environmental and health effects [
12].
Sustainable water management can ensure the efficient and equitable allocation of water resources to achieve outcomes that are socially, economically, and environmentally beneficial [
8]. In agriculture, sustainable water management refers to the set of all those measures and strategies that aim to improve water-use efficiency and productivity by minimizing water losses and negative environmental and health impacts while maintaining agricultural productivity [
6]. Sustainable agricultural water management practices can be broadly classified into the following categories: irrigation management practices; soil management practices; agronomic management practices; and water laws and regulations [
13]. Irrigation system management practices include: the lining of canals and water networks [
6]; the use of drip or sprinkler irrigation [
14]; fertigation [
15]; the appropriate design and regular maintenance of irrigation systems [
16]; irrigation scheduling [
6]; regulated deficit irrigation and partial root drying [
14]; the use of solar energy for groundwater pumping [
17]; the development of surface water storage facilities and rainwater harvesting [
18]; and the planned use of treated wastewater [
19]. Soil management practices include: conservation tillage [
20]; mulching [
21]; and the conservation of riparian buffer zones alongside water channels [
22]. Agronomic practices consist of: the cultivation of short-duration, drought-resistant, and salt-tolerant crop varieties [
23]; agroforestry [
5]; integrated nutrients [
6]; and pest and weed control [
24]. Finally, water laws and regulations include comprehensive policies and frameworks that focus on the sustainable use, protection, and development of water resources at the national level [
8].
Sustainable water management practices are important adaptation measures that farmers can use to cope with and resist the potential risks of water scarcity and water pollution [
25]. Understanding the drivers shaping sustainable water management adoption is required for the further planning and strategic dissemination of sustainable water management practices [
26], allowing water managers and policymakers to know the extent of policy interventions [
27]. Farmers tend to adopt water innovations and conservation techniques as long as they can perceive an increase in expected profitability or a reduction in water pollution [
28]. A large number of studies conducted in the field regarding the adoption of soil and water conservation practices have shown that farm-specific decisions to adopt new conservation practices are influenced by a wide range of considerations: socioeconomic characteristics (age, gender, education level, etc.) [
29,
30]; family management characteristics (size of the labor force, the scale of the agricultural operation, income level, etc.) [
31,
32]; the level of regional economic development; and policy factors (extension system, agricultural technology training, government support, etc.) [
33,
34]. Furthermore, awareness of water pollution is an important factor influencing the decisions of farmers regarding the adoption of SWM practices. According to [
35,
36], the low-level diffusion of water conservation practices, and the inability of farmers to adopt them, are mainly due to improper communication regarding the effect of such practices on environmental sustainability.
Saudi Arabia is classified by the United Nations as a water-scarce nation [
37]. Overconsumption of water and climate change is expected to intensify the problem of water scarcity in the country [
38]. Saudi Arabia has limited freshwater resources, and rainfall is extremely limited [
39]. During the 20 years from 1997 to 2016, the country received an average rainfall of around 65 mm per year [
40]. The agriculture sector is the largest user of water in the country, accounting for 72% of total water use [
41]. Of all the water used for agricultural purposes, 90% is supplied by groundwater aquifers [
42]. Different key challenges are facing Saudi Arabia’s water sector, including balancing food security and water security [
43]; the increasing demand for water from the agricultural sector [
44]; low irrigation efficiency [
45]; population growth and the high consumption of water [
46]; the scarcity of reliable data about ground water resources [
47]; climate change [
39]; water losses through leakage [
43,
48]; and the environmental consequences of desalination plants [
49]. To overcome these problems, the Ministry of Environment, Water, and Agriculture (MEWA) developed its “Strategic plan 2030” to maintain sustainable water management by increasing water awareness, supporting infrastructure projects in the water sector, reducing the domestic production of water-intensive crops, promoting the adoption of sustainable water management among farmers, and ensuring compliance with water legislation and laws [
43,
50].
The development of the agricultural sector in Saudi Arabia requires the adoption of sustainable water management practices in order to ensure the judicious use of the country’s limited freshwater resources. Despite the widespread benefits and positive impact of SWM practices in farming, the adoption of these management practices in the context of Saudi Arabia has rarely been covered in the literature. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the adoption of SWM practices by farmers at the farm level. This aim was achieved by the following objectives: (1) to identify the awareness levels of farmers regarding water pollution; (2) to determine the extent of the adoption of SWM practices among farmers; (3) to explore the relationship between the adoption of SWM practices and the awareness of water pollution; and (4) to determine the factors influencing the adoption of sustainable water management by farmers. Thus, the findings of this study can contribute to closing the knowledge gap by providing useful information for the development of awareness campaigns and advisory and extension programs.
4. Discussion
This study examined the adoption of SWM practices as a strategy for farmers in Saudi Arabia to adapt to the current agro-climatic conditions and water scarcity in the study area. This article provides deeper insight into the varied and dynamic nature of SWM adoption, examining the factors that drove adoption in the study area, and how adoption varied according to the awareness of farmers as to the causes of water pollution. This approach provides a series of valuable policy guidelines to stimulate adoption at the farm level and, in turn, to achieve one of the main objectives of the country’s 2030 vision for the water sector.
Awareness of water pollution issues caused by agriculture is the first step towards overall SWM adoption. Our results found that the awareness levels of most farmers surveyed in this study regarding water pollution was moderate. This means that farmers still have insufficient knowledge about the drivers of water pollution. This might be because farmers lack sufficient understanding of the negative consequences of incompliance with water conservation practices, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. According to Okumah et al. [
63], an understanding of the awareness–behavioral change–water quality pathway is critical in mitigating diffuse water pollution. Such an understanding would offer an opportunity to design “tailored” diffuse water pollution reduction measures and implement effective policy interventions to influence an uptake in SWM practices [
63,
64]. In this regard, agricultural extension services could play a critical role in raising the awareness of water pollution, influencing the behavior of farmers in order to promote the adoption of SWM practices, and facilitating the networking of farmers with other stakeholders in order to solve water issues. These activities could be conducted by a range of individual, group, and mass advisory methods [
65,
66,
67].
Given the adoption rates among the respondents, it is more relevant to discuss the extent to which respondents were practicing SWM rather than how to increase adoption in general. Our results report that most farmers had moderately adopted SWM practices. This result is in agreement with those of previous studies in the field of soil and water conservation [
67,
68,
69,
70,
71]. For all SWM categories, variations in adoption rates were observed for water audit practices, specifically with regard to using smart meters on wells and using new devices for irrigation scheduling and soil moisture monitoring. This might be attributed to the lack of positive attitudes among farmers toward the effects of such practices on water efficiency consumption. Other possible explanations for this result could be attributed to the negative attitudes of farmers towards applying such practices. Farmers perceive that water audit practices are a method of monitoring water consumption and applying water pricing and water quota policies. The results also reveal, among conservation practices, that the rate of adopting cultivating crops that are commensurate with the degree of wastewater and industrial treatment was low compared to the other practices. This might be attributed to the lack of knowledge among farmers about the safe use of wastewater in agriculture because of irregular contact with extension services, as presented in
Table 1. In this sense, it is worth noting that some farmers, on purpose, grow some crops that are not suitable for the level of wastewater treatment. Accordingly, implementing inspection campaigns that monitor the compliance of famers with wastewater legislation, and apply penalties to violators, is critical for enhancing the adoption by farmers of wastewater use in irrigation. In general, the adoption of SWM practices can be stimulated when farmers discover the advantages and disadvantages of different practices and have the opportunity to experiment on their own land [
72].
The findings highlight an interrelationship between the awareness of farmers regarding the causes of agricultural water pollution and their adoption of SWM practices. In other words, farmers with a higher awareness of the levels of water pollution exhibit higher adoption rates. In this regard, the results clarify that knowledge of the adverse consequences of incompliance with the correct usage of water resources creates the motivation for acquiring knowledge about best management practices. Correctly diagnosing water challenges and problems is the first step in identifying possible solutions to cope with water scarcity. Consequently, policies and strategies should be targeted towards developing integrated extension messages that explain the environmental risks associated with noncompliance, and the penalties related to it, and provide information about SWM practices and how to adopt them at the farm level [
64,
66,
73]. This finding is aligned with other studies that have reported a positive relationship between the awareness of water issues and the adoption of soil and water conservation practices [
70,
74,
75,
76].
However, despite some recent studies that have indicated the importance of intercropping in maintaining high crop yields, effectively decreasing water consumption in semi-arid and arid climates, providing better coverage on the soil surface, reducing the direct impact of raindrops, and protecting soil from erosion [
77,
78,
79], the results show that cultivated crops had a negative and significant effect on the adoption of SWM practices. This means that farmers who specialized in cultivating palm trees scored higher in adoption compared to farmers who cultivated palm and other crops. In other words, mono-cropping will accelerate the adoption of SWM practices, whereas intercropping may discourage farmers from adopting SWM practices in Saudi Arabia. A probable explanation for this result might be that farmers have insufficient knowledge of the management of limited water resources under intercropping systems.
Moreover, most farmers in the study area specialized in the production and exporting of dates. According to the observations during field data collection, several farmers mentioned that they had encountered some difficulties in implementing integrated pest management programs for red palm weevils within the context of intercropping, programs which are critical for ensuring the livelihoods of palm farmers in the study area. This result is consistent with the results of Zhang, Fu, Wang, and Zhang [
69], who found that the diversity of agricultural activities had a negative effect on the adoption of water-saving irrigation technologies by farmers in China. On the contrary, another study, conducted by He et al. [
80] in China, reported that the diversity of crops grown resulted in an increase in the probability of rainwater harvesting and supplementary irrigation technology adoption.
Surprisingly, among the explanatory variables, extension contact did not have a significant effect on the adoption of SWM practices. One explanation could be that Saudi agricultural extension services are inactive in providing effective services, particularly in the field of soil and water conservation, or they use inactive extension methods. This conclusion is supported by the findings of several studies conducted in Saudi Arabia [
66,
81,
82,
83,
84] that confirm the weak role of extension services in changing the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of farmers regarding the adoption of agricultural innovations. This result is in line with the findings of Gebru et al. [
85], who argue that access to extension services was not statistically significant in explaining the adoption of water harvesting practices by farmers in a semi-arid region of Ethiopia. In contrast, some studies [
86,
87] have shown that access to extension services has a negative significant association with the adoption of SWM practices, while a large number of previous studies [
29,
64,
71,
88,
89,
90,
91,
92] have found that extension access significantly influences the adoption of SWM practices.
5. Conclusions
This paper attempted to develop an understanding of the adoption of SWM practices by Saudi farmers. As this topic is rarely covered in the literature within the context of Saudi Arabia, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by highlighting the relationship between the awareness of farmers concerning the causes of agricultural water pollution and the adoption of SWM practices, as well as the factors influencing adoption. The results conclude that farmers need support to enhance their knowledge regarding the causes of agricultural water pollution. It was also found that the levels of adoption by farmers of SWM categories (i.e., soil and water conservation, water quality, water audit, and water conservation) ranged between medium and high rates for all practices. Furthermore, our results confirm an interesting interplay between the adoption and knowledge levels of farmers regarding agricultural water pollution, indicating that farmers with more knowledge about the causes of agricultural water adoption were more likely to adopt SWM.
The results also show that the variable of cultivated crops is significantly influenced by the adoption of SWM practices. The SWM practices developed in this study have implications in both theory and practice. This study offers a relatively simple view of the adoption patterns of SWM practices at the farm level. This scale of practices offers a practical guide, with a tested and reliable rating scale, to assist future researchers who want to research the adoption of SWM practices. Practically, this scale provides insights into the adoption gaps that need to be filled by farmers, particularly water audit practices. The results also provide useful implications for policymakers for developing extension programs and providing incentives to stimulate adoption at the farm level. Due to the scarcity of research on the adoption of SWM practices in Saudi Arabia, more comprehensive empirical research on the impact of SWM adoption on productivity and profitability is needed. Moreover, how the adoption of SWM practices may be influenced by the attitudes of farmers toward environmental sustainability and governmental incentives would be beneficial to investigate.