Variations of land use and irrigation for next decades under different scenarios

Abstract

The goal of this paper is estimation of area equipped for irrigation in Americas in 2035 and 2060 using study of agricultural water management during 1962 to 2011. For this purpose, all necessary information was gathered from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and was checked using The World Bank Group (WBG). Among all presented data in the FAO database, 10 indexes were selected (due to more importance and more availability for all the regions in Americas). These indexes are permanent crops per cultivated area (%), rural population per total population (%), total economically active population in agriculture per total economically active population (%), human development index (HDI), national rainfall index (NRI) (mm/yr), value added to gross domestic product (GDP) by agriculture (%), irrigation water requirement (mm/yr), percent of total cultivated area drained (%), difference between NIR and irrigation water requirement (mm/yr), and area equipped for irrigation per cultivated area (%). These indexes were analyzed for all 5 regions in the study area and amount of area equipped for irrigation per cultivated area (10th index) was estimated by three different scenarios and using the other 9 indexes.