Wheat yield scenarios for rainwater harvesting at Northern Sinjar Mountain, Iraq

Abstract

Iraq is part of West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region. The area is known as dry land, famous with gap of crop yield as a result of the water shortage problem. Six basins with total catch-ment area of 614.19 km 2 at rain-fed of Northern Sinjar District (Iraq) had been chosen to inves-tigate both of the potential of rainwater harves-ting (RWH) and three supplemental irrigation (SI) scenarios S1, S2, and S3 (100%, 75%, and 50% of full irrigation requirement) to support the wheat yield (bread and durum) under various rainfall conditions for the study period 1990-2009. The results indicated that, the total volume of har-vested runoff can be considered for irrigation practices, that reached up to 42.4, 25.1, 0.6, 10.9 (× 10 6 m 3) during 1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1998-1999, and 2001-2002, respectively. The total irrigated area ranged between 10.9 -5163.7 and 8.8 -3595.7 (ha) for bread and durum wheat crop for the four selected seasons respectively. The yield scenarios for supplemental irrigation condition Y1, Y2, and Y3 give 68 -9712, 94 -12,999, and 105 -22,806 Ton for bread wheat, and for durum wheat give 56 -8035, 87 -10,906, and 103 -17,396 Ton.