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Irrigating farmers in Tunisia are facing a variety of risks, including increasingly frequent water shortages, due to institutional, political and climate changes. In this context, farmers implement a variety of adaptation strategies that can be classified into four categories: (i) water management adaptations; (ii) investments in irrigation equipment; (iii) changes in farming practices and productions; and (iv) farm-household management options. Understanding the factors driving farmers' choices is crucial to support them in their strategies to mitigate and cope with water scarcity. Economic literature related to farmers' vulnerability and adaptation has pointed out the role of various livelihood assets, as important factors to reduce farmers' vulnerability. More recently, several studies, based on the Protection Motivation Theory, showed that psychological factors are of crucial importance in the adoption of water conservation practices. We conducted a survey with irrigating farmers in public irrigation schemes in the downstream part of the Lebna catchment, in the Cap Bon region of Tunisia (n=58), and in the Kairouan plain in Central Tunisia (n=100) with varying balance between surface and ground water sources. In both areas, an increasing number of farmers complement their water supply with private boreholes taping groundwater. Results show that the interviewed farmers implement a high diversity of adaptations, often several of them at the same time. The adaptation category varies with the context of access to water (case study, irrigated scheme) and the time of implementation of the measure relative to the time of water shortage. Results also suggest that some psycho-cognitive factors such as farmers' perception of the efficiency of adaptation measures and of their own capacity to implement them may have an influence on their choice of adaptations. On the other hand, the homogeneity of their perception of the probability and severity of the risk of water shortages, and of their attitude towards subjective norms suggests that these have little effect on their choices. Further analysis is needed to better understand the relationships between adaptation strategies, asset endowment and psycho-cognitive factors.
