Farming and water
Posted: 13 December 2007
Over two-thirds of the freshwater used by humans each year is used for irrigating crops. In Africa, the river Nile loses 90 per cent of its water to irrigation and other uses before it reaches the Mediterranean. In Asia, which has two-thirds of the world's irrigated land, 85 per cent of water goes for irrigation. The river Jordan is so heavily used by farmers that only a third of its water makes it as far as the Dead Sea.
Credit: AAAS Atlas of Population & EnvironmentPerhaps the most infamous example of irrigation concerns the Aral Sea, in central Asia. Half a century ago two rivers, the Ama Darya and the Syr Darya, delivered 55 billion cubic metres of water to the Aral Sea each year. Then in the 1960s a vast Soviet cotton scheme began to tap the rivers for irrigation water. By the 1980s a mere seven billion cubic metres reached the Aral Sea. Fisheries which once supported 60,000 people collapsed; two dozen native fish species became extinct. See: Requiem for a dying sea.
Topic Latest
- Welcome to our Website
- Voices from Planet 21
- Commentary: 20 years on - and time runs desperately short
- World in serious trouble on food front
- Arab grain imports rising rapidly
- COMMENTARY: Green renaissance, not revolution
- Lost bees could cost UK farmers a fortune
- Rising number of farm animals poses environmental and public health risks
- Why cashew is driving Guinean farmers nuts
- 'Free-for-all' decimates fish stocks in the southern Pacific
- COMMENTARY: World must wake up to the coming crisis in the Sahel
- Bumper 2011 grain harvest fails to rebuild global stocks
- Food security a looming crisis
- Rush for land a wake-up call for poorer countries
- World grain production down, meat consumption up