Regional Overview of South America, Central America and the Caribbean

Year: 2016

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General summary

Fifteen years after the first publication "Irrigation in Latin America and the Caribbean in figures" (FAO, 2000), it appeared necessary to update the data and to identify the main changes in water use and irrigation that had occurred in the region. The countries forming the region were determined by the regional distribution given in FAO's Water Report 23 "Review of world water resources by country" (2003). In this update though, the 21 countries of the "Central America and the Caribbean" region have been split into two sepate groups - "Central America" ​​and "Caribbean" - thus resulting in a total of three subregions. The countries included in each subregion are:

• South America: Argentina, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of);
• Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama;
• Caribbean and Bahamas: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago.

In this survey Mexico is included as part of North America and therefore its data are not part of this report. However, the information on Mexico has also been updated, and its national profile can be consulted. In the previous survey, 32 countries were also considered, but the list of countries does not coincide with the current list. The Bahamas was not included in the previous version of the survey while is part of this version.

This general perspective of the region presents outstanding characteristics that arise from the new data collected at national level for issues addressed in the thirty-two country profiles and in the cross-border basin profile made for the Amazon Basin.