Individuals and communities socially construct risk, and societies with greater risk perception may be more apt to mobilize or adapt to emergent threats like climate change. Increasing climate change awareness is often considered necessary in the first stages of the adaptation process to manage its impacts and reduce overall vulnerability. Since agriculture is affected by climate change in several ways, farmers can provide first-hand observations of climate change impacts and adaptation options. This paper aims to identify the current research trends and set the future research agenda on climate change awareness, perceived impacts, and adaptive capacity from farmers’ experiences and behavior. We analyzed a portfolio of 435 articles collected from WoS and Scopus databases between 2010 and 2020 using bibliometrics. From the original portfolio, we select 108 articles for a more comprehensive and systematic review. Publication trends and content analysis have been employed to identify influential work, delineate the mental structure of farmers’ beliefs and concerns, and identify main research gaps. The comprehensive analysis reported (1) farmers’ socio-demographic characteristics influencing farmers’ perceptions; (2) awareness and changing climate evidence due to human activity; (3) the main perceived effects (rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and extreme events); (4) the most relevant adaptation measures (crop changing and soil/water conservation techniques); and (5) factors and barriers limiting adaptation (lack of information, credit, and expertness). The review outlines the main gaps and their drivers to help future researchers, managers, and decision-makers to prioritize their actions according to farmers’ concerns and their adaptive capacity to reduce farming vulnerability.

The scientific understanding of climate change is firmly established; it is occurring, it is primarily due to human activities, and it poses potentially serious risks to human and natural systems. Nevertheless, public understanding of this phenomenon varies widely among farmers and the public, the two-target audience of this paper. This paper introduces two research questions: (1) How climate change is perceived by public-farmers’ nexus; and (2) How perception and populism (as a thin-ideology moved by social forces) interact? In order to address both questions, we review insights from different sources (literature, research projects, and public opinion services) over the last 10 years. The results proved how public experience of climate change is interdependent with the belief that climate change is happening. What is also notable is that the greater the years of farmers’ farming experiences, the greater the percentage rate of their climate change awareness. Differences among farmers and public perceptions were also noted. Uncertainty, coupled with skepticism, the media, and political will, are common findings when asking to farmers and the public for the main weaknesses in adaptation to climate change. However, scientific consensus, meteorological data, barriers to adaptation, and the role of technology are subjects in which both differ.

Water consumption continues to grow globally, and it is estimated that more than 160% of the total global water volume will be needed to satisfy the water requirements in ten years. In this context, non-conventional water resources are being considered to overcome water scarcity and reduce water conflicts between regions and sectors. A bibliometric analysis and literature review of 81 papers published between 2000 and 2020 focused on south-east Spain were conducted. The aim was to examine and re-think the benefits and concerns, and the inter-connections, of using reclaimed and desalinated water for agricultural and urban-tourist uses to address water scarcity and climate change impacts. Results highlight that: (1) water use, cost, quality, management, and perception are the main topics debated by both reclaimed and desalinated water users; (2) water governance schemes could be improved by including local stakeholders and water users in decision-making; and (3) rainwater is not recognized as a complementary option to increase water supply in semi-arid regions. Furthermore, the strengths–weaknesses–opportunities–threats (SWOT) analysis identifies complementary concerns such as acceptability and investment in reclaimed water, regulation (cost recovery principle), and environmental impacts of desalinated water.

Farmers’ perception of climate change is crucial in adaptation intention and process. However, farmers’ perceptions may not be timely, accurate and systematically consistent with the direction and significance of observational records. Although some research compared farmers’ perceptions and climate data, little attention has been paid to comprehensibly analyse both data sources discrepancies based on empirical studies results. By combining bibliometrics and a systematic review approach, we identify which approaches are used to compare perceived and observed data, how both patterns have been mutually evolved, which factors determine their (in)consistency, and if their accordance and robustness affect farmers’ adaptive capacity. We analyse a portfolio of 147 papers collected from the Scopus library catalogue since 2000. The bibliometric analysis was coupled with an exploratory analysis of 98 papers selected from the original portfolio. The literature is extensive, fast-growing, and spans several disciplines. We identify four consolidated research lines: (a) perceived risk and farmers’ adaptive capacity nexus, (b) crop vulnerability due to temperature increase and erratic rainfall patterns, (c) forecasting use and influence in farmers’ decisions, and (d) climate change awareness conditioning farmers’ profiles. Nonetheless, we observe some research gaps: (a) a conceptual mismatch in ‘normal pattern’ or ‘drought’ meaning, (b) poor or limited data from meteorological stations, (c) overlook or oversimplification of local knowledge in describing perception, (d) farmers’ memory weaknesses to keep track of climate alterations, and (e) a geographical dissonance in favour of Global South regions. Our science-metric study also reveals some research questions to be consolidated: Can the perception of extreme events increase climate change awareness? Can greater awareness reduce discrepancy with observed data? How do heuristics and socio-psychological filters influence farmers’ awareness and interpretation of climate data? We suggest putting major efforts into reinforcing these research lines as part of a novel domain-dependent trend to reduce the discrepancy.

Traditionally, most irrigation practices in Southern Europe have been based on gravity-fed surface irrigation systems. Currently, these systems remain a relevant typology in the European Union (EU) member states of the Mediterranean areas, where it is often the only sustainable method for farmers due to the small size of agricultural holdings, their reduced capacity and readiness to invest and the low ratio between yield profits and irrigation costs. In the last several years, in response to European and national directives, surface irrigation has garnered increasing attention at the political and bureaucratic levels due to frequent criticisms of its postulated low efficiency and high water wastage. However, these systems commonly provide a number of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions that increase the positive externalities in different rural socio-ecological contexts and often have the potential to extend these services and provide solutions that are compatible with economical sustainability. This study aims to discuss the prospects for new practices and for the rehabilitation and modernization of the gravity-fed surface irrigation systems in EU Mediterranean areas to enhance water efficiency, thus gaining both economic advantages and environmental benefits. The difficulties, stimuli for improvements and peculiarities of the irrigation water management of four rural environments located in Italy, Spain and Portugal were analyzed and compared to the current state of the gravity-fed surface irrigation systems with hypothetical future improvements achievable by innovative technologies and practices. In these different case studies, the current gravity-fed surface irrigation systems have an obsolete regulatory structure; water-use efficiency is not a driving criterion for the management of the conveyance and distribution canal network, and farmers are not yet adequately encouraged to adopt more efficient gravity-fed irrigation practices. A continuous knowledge exchange is thus necessary for the interaction of all irrigation water managers and farmers to improve their eco-efficiency and to preserve and promote their cultural heritage across the entire water supply and delivery chains. We argue that the best way forward will require precisely targeted rehabilitation measures of gravity-fed surface irrigation systems based on the integrated use of decision support services, gate automation, remote and feedback controls and real-time flow optimization.