The Autonomous Community of Region Murcia has opened the funding scheme for the modernisation of irrigation. According to the department responsible for water, agriculture, livestock and fisheries, headed by Joaquín Buendía communities of water users and general irrigation communities can submit applications by 23 October 2026 The aims are digitalisation, lower energy use and the technical modernisation of existing networks.
According to the administration’s announcement, this is a co-financing scheme: the public grant can cover up to 40 per cent of eligible expenditure for each project. Funding is available, among other things, for metering and control technology, smart distribution systems, more energy-efficient pumps and facilities for generating electricity for own use from renewable sources. The legal basis is an administrative order published in the Boletín Oficial de la Región de Murcia ; the procedure is handled through the Regional Government’s Sede electrónica .
The government places the measure within its strategy to reduce water consumption and operating costs in agriculture and support security of supply in water-scarce regions. The administration points to modernisation steps already taken, which it says have advanced the irrigation sector’s technological development and sustainability. The announcement does not specify the amounts already awarded for projects or the total budget for the current round; the selection criteria and assessment standards are set out in the call for applications.
Applicants must meet formal requirements: the investment project must not have started when the application is submitted; the legal status of the irrigation organisation must be demonstrated; and the regulation’s technical and environmental requirements must be met. The administration allows incomplete documents to be amended. Deadlines and legal remedies are set out in Ley 39/2015 on administrative procedure.
A scoring matrix will determine which projects receive funding, setting priorities based, for example, on expected water and energy savings, the level of digitalisation and the project’s readiness. Upgrading metering and control technology can enable more precise distribution, better monitoring and faster fault detection in pipeline networks. For farms and irrigation communities, the funding could make it easier to invest in measures that reduce costs and resource consumption over the long term. Competition for limited funds will nevertheless remain; the specific grant amounts will only be known once the authority issues its decisions.
Editor: Daniel Mayer (Article created with AI assistance).