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The use of irrigation equipment and machines in agriculture causes a large amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study aims to evaluate the GHG emitted during the life cycle of three irrigation systems, with the purpose of assessing their Carbon Footprint. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology has been used, according to ISO international standard 14067. The irrigation techniques chosen for comparison are dripline systems and hose reel machine equipped with both travelling rain gun and spray boom. The analysis was carried out using the software Simapro, with the support of the Ecoinvent Database. Results show that, under the assumed scenario, dripline systems are the irrigation technology with the highest GWP, while travelling boom system has the lowest one. The high impact of dripline systems is due to their short lifetime, since they have to be replaced annually. The hose reel equipped with boom seems to be the most sustainable system, in terms of GWP per m3 of distributed water, because of both its long lifetime and low working pressure.
