Turkmenistan

Area equipped for irrigation (1 990 800 ha in total) was derived for five provinces from a report provided with the AQUASTAT country questionnaire [TM01]. The figures refer to year 2006 and indicate that the extent of irrigated land has still been increasing in Turkmenistan. The irrigated area per province is visible in the table below, also downloadable as Turkmenistan irrigation areas in PDF or Turkmenistan irrigation areas in Excel.

The irrigated areas were digitized from a map showing irrigated areas in the Aral Sea Basin [TM02]. The shape of the boundaries of the irrigated areas was then adjusted using satellite imagery [TM03]. The location of the digitized irrigated areas was in good agreement with a map showing the irrigation infrastructure of the country [TM04]. These digitized irrigated areas were combined with irrigated cropland derived from the Globcover regional classification for Central Asia [TM05]. Irrigated area was then assigned with the highest priority to pixels being irrigated according to both data sources and after that, if required, to pixels that were either covered by the digitized irrigated areas or classified as irrigated by Globcover.

Area equipped for irrigation with groundwater declined to 9 608 ha in year 2006 [TM06]. Area actually irrigated was similar to area equipped for irrigation in year 2006 [TM06].

References

[TM01]: Ministry of Water Economy. 2007. Programme for development of agriculture for the period up to year 2030. Report of a joint inter-sectoral working group, in Turkmen.
[TM02]: Unknown. Aral Sea Basin 1:2 500 000 - administrative boundaries and irrigated areas. Map available in the FAO-AGL library.
[TM03]: Earth Satellite Corporation. 2004. Landsat GeoCover (2000/ETM+) Edition Mosaics, tiles 071-312, 071-313, 071-322, 071-323, 071-334 and 071-335. Sioux Falls, USA, USGS, http://glcfapp.umiacs.umd.edu:8080.
[TM04]: FAO. 1998. Turkmenistan - FAO special programme for food security. Exploratory mission report. FAO, Rome, Italy.
[TM05]: ESA. 2008. Regional Globcover Land Cover – Central Asia. Version 2.2. http://postel.mediasfrance.org/en/DOWNLOAD/, 24/03/2009.
[TM06]: FAO. 2013. AQUASTAT Country Statistics.