Satisfaction of Human Needs as a Tool for the Evaluation of Sustainability through Indicators

Abstract

Inside the current worldwide framework of climate change, economic globalization and population growth, irrigation agriculture faces a series of problems which have to be approached as a challenge to sustainability. To speak about sustainability in irrigation it must be stated that irrigation agriculture is a system of production of goods with the objective of satisfying human needs. From this definition, the concept of sustainable development as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs achieves full meaning. Developing a methodology of evaluation of sustainability, focused through checking the level of satisfaction of human needs of local populations, may allow for a more complete vision of reality than a mere economic evaluation. In this paper, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is proposed as the structural basis of a methodology of evaluation of sustainability through indicators. Through a survey of farmers in the irrigation area of Terra Cha province of Lugo, northwestern Spain, indicators are developed to monitor the sustainability of their production system. Those indicators are included as ecological factors in a specially-designed algorithm to compare social achievements with the resources used for those achievements. Such a comparison is useful in assessing sustainability through the use of indicators.