Global Map of Irrigation Areas (GMIA)

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Irrigation by country

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Paraguay

For Paraguay no information could be found on the area equipped for irrigation on the sub-national level. According to the AQUASTAT country survey there are about 67 000 ha equipped for irrigation in the entire country [PY01]. The figure refers to 1998. AEI equipped for irrigation per department was estimated by selecting for each department the maximum of sowing areas of irrigated rice reported for the period 2004/05 – 2008/09 [PY02]. These maximum rice growing areas (in total 74 475 ha) were then scaled so that the total AEI was equal to the area of 67 000 ha reported in the AQUASTAT country survey [PY01]. The irrigated area per department estimated that way is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Paraguay irrigation areas in PDF or Paraguay irrigation areas in Excel.

The irrigated area within the country was distributed based on an FAO study on irrigation development from 1973 [PY03] and on a CIAT map with irrigated rice [PY04]. The remaining irrigated land was assigned areas classified as cropland in the GLC2000 land cover data set [PY05].

Water extracted from small streams and rivers is the major source of irrigation water in Paraguay ([PY01], [PY06]) while artesian wells are used at some places. Based on this indicative information percentage of irrigated area from groundwater sources was estimated at 10 percent.

References

[PY01]: FAO. 2000. AQUASTAT country profile of Paraguay, version 2000. FAO, Rome, http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries_regions/paraguay/indexesp.stm, 06/10/2010.
[PY02]: Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganaderia. 2010. Arroz con riego: superficie, produccion y rendimento por departemento. Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganaderia, http://www.mag.gov.py/Censo/temporales/ARROZ%20CON%20RIEGO.pdf, 17/01/2011.
[PY03]: FAO. 1973. Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, Riego y Usos del Agua. Report no. 3185.
[PY04]: CIAT. 1997. Distribution of rice in Latin America. http://www.gis.ciat.cgiar.org or http://www.grida.no/prog/global/cgiar/.
[PY05]: Eva, H.D., de Miranda, E.E., Di Bella, C.M., Gond, V., Huber, O., Sgrenzaroli, M., Jones, S., Coutinho, A., Dorado, A., Guimarães, M., Elvidge, C., Achard, F., Belward, A.S., Bartholomé, S., Baraldi, A., De Grandi, G., Vogt, P., Fritz, S. & Hartley, A. 2003. The land cover map for South America in the year 2000. GLC2000 database, European Commision Joint Research Centre, http://www-gem.jrc.it/glc2000, 10/08/2006.
[PY06] Espínola, H. 2005. Situación del Riego en Paraguay. Presentation held at the workshop: Irrigación y desarrollo rural en el Cono Sur: Desafíos y oportunidades, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, October 13-14, 2005, http://idbdocs.iadb.org/WSDocs/ getDocument.aspx?DOCNUM=735667, 25/08/2009.