Most studies on the environmental performance of irrigation have focused on the water–food–energy nexus, i.e. relationships betweenfood production, water consu mption and energy. However, water and energy are not the only relevant indicators of the environmentalperformance of irrigation systems. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a holistic method that is well suited to comprehensive assessment. Thispaper aims at using LCA to assess the environmental impacts of contrasted groundwater pumping systems in semi-arid central Tunisia.In line with previous studies, our results confirm that for groundwater pumping, energy has the highest environmentalimpacts on human health, the ecosystem and resource depletion. Our work also highlights that along with pump efficiency,the type of power source must be considered when ranking pumping systems based on environmental performance. Indeed, diesel-powered pumping systems are more harmful than electric pumps when electricity is generated from naturalgas and diesel-powered pump efficiency is low. However, the diesel pumping system becomes the best option when electricityis derived from coal and diesel-powered pump efficiency exceeds 12%.Finally, water depletion has been shown of great importance in this study, and ongoing LCA improvements should facilitatea more comprehensive picture of these site-specific impacts.