In the past decades a large body of literature has focused on the assessment of the natural recharge and parameters of control (including climate, vegetation, soils, and topography). On the contrary, only few papers focused on aquifer recharge from intensively irrigated farmland. Although findings have improved the understanding of recharge phenomena, they still fail to characterize many features of aquifer recharge from the mentioned land use. In this context, the aims of this thesis are: (i) to improve the understanding of aquifer recharge from intensively irrigated farmland, and (ii) to provide new tools for its characterization. Also, this thesis provides a framework that can be easily used by practitioners to infer quantitative information. Field tests, including different crop types and agricultural management, were carried out in the Campo de Cartagena area of southeast Spain, a semi-arid region where intensive irrigated agriculture is prevalent. The development of methodologies, with field observations in both saturated and unsaturated media, along with the application of numerical modelling were used to understand the processes governing the recharge from irrigated farmland. The developed approaches can be summarized as follows:A field experiment with annual row crops and drip irrigation.