A digitial map of irrigated areas - An update for Asia
Siebert S, Feick S, Hoogeveen J (2005)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Authored book, Volume of book series
Publication year: 2005
Publisher: .
Series: Frankfurt Hydrology Papers
City/Town: Frankfurt/Main
Book Volume: 01
Pages Range: 115
Open Access Link: https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/45217771/FHP_01_Siebert_2005.pdf
Abstract
Agriculture is by far the largest water-use sector, accounting for about 70 percent of all water
withdrawn worldwide from rivers and aquifers for agricultural, domestic and industrial
purposes. In several developing countries, irrigation represents up to 95 percent of all water
withdrawn, and it plays a major role in food production and food security. The agriculture
development strategies of most of these countries depend on the possibility of maintaining,
improving and expanding irrigated agriculture. However, as the pressure on water resources
increases, irrigation is facing growing competition from other water-use sectors and becoming a threat to the environment in an increasing number of regions.
In the last decade, the international community has made major efforts to assess the different
elements of the water balance and to predict current and future water needs for the different use
sectors. However, considerable uncertainty remains concerning the extent and distribution of
irrigated land in the world and on agricultural water use, therefore, making it difficult to monitor
the irrigation sector adequately. Coverage of irrigated areas in the world, available in a
geographical information system (GIS), is the single most important item of information needed
to improve future global studies on water and food.
The first version of the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas was published in 1999 (see
table). It consisted of a raster map with a resolution of 0.5 ° by 0.5 ° containing the percentage
of the area that was equipped for irrigation around 1995, the so-called irrigation density. To
further develop and improve the global GIS coverage of areas equipped for irrigation and to
make it available to users in the international community, cooperation was established between the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the Land and Water Development Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Through this cooperation, the mapping project has been linked closely to the FAO global
information system on water and agriculture, Aquastat. The Aquastat programme collects and
disseminates data and information by country and by region. Its aim is to provide users
interested in global, regional and national analysis (e.g. policy-makers, decision-makers and
researchers) with the most accurate, reliable, consistent and up-to-date information available on water resources and agricultural water management. In order to make thorough analyses, the Aquastat programme collects data from many different sources including national water
resources and irrigation master plans, statistics and yearbooks, FAO technical reports, and
national and international surveys and reports made available by national and international
research centres.
The data collected through the Aquastat programme have served as the main source for
improving the overall quality and resolution of the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas. In
addition, the methodology for producing the map has been improved substantially. This has
made it possible to increase the spatial resolution of the map to 5 minutes, thus justifying the
publication of an improved second version of the Digital Global Map of Irrigated Areas. For
Version 2, updated maps of Latin America, Europe, Africa and Oceania have been published.
The next step in improving the dataset is the inclusion of the continent of Asia, which is
presented in this document. For the update of the map of Asia, an inventory of subnational
irrigation statistics for the continent was compiled. Irrigation maps were derived from project
reports, irrigation subsector studies and books related to irrigation and drainage and were
compared with satellite images in many regions. The reference year for the update of the map is 2000.
Authors with CRIS profile
Involved external institutions
Germany (DE)How to cite
APA:
Siebert, S., Feick, S., & Hoogeveen, J. (2005). A digitial map of irrigated areas - An update for Asia. Frankfurt/Main: ..
MLA:
Siebert, Stefan, Sebastian Feick, and Jippe Hoogeveen. A digitial map of irrigated areas - An update for Asia. Frankfurt/Main: ., 2005.
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