**2. Methods**

On-site interviews were performed using special questionnaires (see Supplementary Material) and relevant reports were produced (see Data Availability Statement). The interviews concerned four categories of irrigation system managemen<sup>t</sup> setups: (a) regional authorities that are responsible for irrigation water and municipalities that are responsible for irrigation of public urban greenspaces (including athletic facilities), (b) public organisations that manage participatory agricultural irrigation systems, (c) agricultural farms and (d) private touristic or leisure greenspaces and gardens. In this framework, four questionnaires were formed depending on the special features of the setups they were addressing, but they all had a common structure and a number of common questions. The questionnaires were divided in six sections as follows:


**Citation:** Tsirogiannis, I.L. Irrigation Practice Survey for Crops and Urban Greenspaces at Northwest and West Greece and Southeast Italy. *Environ. Sci. Proc.* **2023**, *25*, 14. https:// doi.org/10.3390/ECWS-7-14186

Academic Editor: Lampros Vasiliades

Published: 14 March 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).


The research was conducted during 2013 and 2014 all around the region of Western Greece, the region of Epirus in Greece, the region of Apulia in Italy (Figure 1) for which 490, 500 and 449 interviews were per region were performed, respectively (Table 1).

**Figure 1.** Area of the survey region of Western Greece, the region of Epirus in Greece, the region of Apulia in Italy.

**Table 1.** Number of interviews that were performed per category of irrigation system managemen<sup>t</sup> setups and region.


### **3. Results and Discussion**

Selected topics that concern irrigation managemen<sup>t</sup> are presented in Table 2 (for regional authorities that are responsible for irrigation water and municipalities that are

responsible for irrigation of public urban greenspaces (including athletic facilities) and for public organisations that manage participatory agricultural irrigation systems) and Table 3 (for agricultural farms and for private touristic or leisure greenspaces and gardens).

**Table 2.** Replies (percentage of total) from (a) regional authorities that are responsible for irrigation water and municipalities that are responsible for irrigation of public urban greenspaces (including athletic facilities) and (b) public organisations that manage participatory agricultural irrigation systems, for selected topics that regard irrigation managemen<sup>t</sup> (NA: no data available).


**Table 3.** Replies (percentage of total) from (c) agricultural farms and (d) private touristic or leisure greenspaces and gardens for selected topics that regard irrigation managemen<sup>t</sup> (NA: no data available).


 6

Most of the organisations that regard irrigation managemen<sup>t</sup> are aware of local water managemen<sup>t</sup> plans, but they are not convinced that there is a straightforward strategy regarding irrigation water managemen<sup>t</sup> in the area, although irrigation water managemen<sup>t</sup> is performed efficiently (Table 2). Probable drought is reported as the most significant concern regarding water availability in the area (Tables 2 and 3), while the setting of rules and the provision of guidance regarding water distribution are regarded helpful as a means to mitigate water shortages in the area (Tables 2 and 3). The organisations do not blame excessive consumption of irrigation water as the main cause for water shortages in the area: they generally do not think that there is adequate irrigation water managemen<sup>t</sup> at the end user level, although they agree that there is lack of training of end users. In general, they provide end users with advice regarding irrigation, drainage and fertilisation managemen<sup>t</sup> (Table 2).

End users generally agree that there is efficient water managemen<sup>t</sup> at the basin level, that the provided rules and guidance regarding water distribution are helping to mitigate water shortages in the area, and that support is provided from relevant public authorities (Table 3). Farmers are typically informed regarding agricultural issues, including irrigation by agronomic consultants, although they do not think that they need special training regarding irrigation managemen<sup>t</sup> or scheduling and consequently the majority have not attended educational/training sessions specialised in irrigation (Table 3).

For greenspaces, the provision of the irrigation system's designer/contractor with irrigation scheduling plan, and the request for professional assistance regarding the irrigation schedule, is something common but for crops is very rare (Table 3). The use of special IT tools for irrigation managemen<sup>t</sup> is low to very low for organisations and farmers but high for managers of greenspaces (Tables 2 and 3). While organisations showed low interest to adapt to such tools (Table 2), both categories of end users were quite interested in doing so (Table 3). A significant percentage of both categories of end users believe that using electronics or IT technologies for irrigation managemen<sup>t</sup> could lead to water conservation: the main drawbacks are the complexity of those systems combined with the lack of training and support (Table 3).
