AQUASTAT - FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture

    Switzerland

    Information about the extent of irrigated areas in Switzerland is very scarce. Total area equipped for irrigation is estimated at 55 000 ha, of which 43 000 ha are regulary irrigated while 12 000 ha are irrigated in dry years only. Area equipped for irrigation and area actually irrigated for 19 cantons were estimated from the statistics contained in a report of the irrigation survey 2006 [CH01]. For the cantons containing the largest irrigated areas, statistics were reported by the survey, while for other cantons irrigated areas were computed based on reported water uses. To estimate areas actually irrigated it was assumed that the areas, which are irrigated in dry years only, receive irrigation in 1 out of in 5 years. The irrigated area per canton estimated that way is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Switzerland irrigation areas in PDF or Switzerland irrigation areas in Excel.

    Irrigation is mainly practiced in some parts of the canton Valais along the Rhone river where annual precipitation is less than 600 mm. 29 500 ha of irrigated land is located in this region. The outlines of the corresponding irrigation area and some additional irrigation areas in other parts of Switzerland were digitized from irrigation maps ([CH02], [CH03]). Regions of high irrigation water requirements indicated on maps in [CH04] were digitized as well. Area equipped for irrigation was then assigned to polygons extracted from the Corine 2000 land cover database [CH05] classified as agricultural land (classes 211 – 243) and located inside the polygons digitized before.

    Based on the statistics provided by the irrigation survey 2006 [CH01] area equipped for irrigation with groundwater was estimated at 12 100 ha.

    References

    [CH01]: Weber, M. & Schild, A. 2007. Stand der Bewässerung in der Schweiz. Bericht zur Umfrage 2006. Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, Abteilung Strukturverbesserungen, Bern, Switzerland, http://www.blw.admin.ch/dokumentation/00018/00112/00504/index.html?lang=de, 27/08/2009.
    [CH02]: Framji, K.K., Garg, B.C. & Luthra, S.D.L. 1981. Irrigation and drainage in the world. Third edition. Vol. III, p. 1306. New Delhi, ICID.
    [CH03]: Göpfert, R. 2007. Ermittlung der Bewässerungsbedürftigkeit landwirtschaftlicher Nutzflächen im Kanton Graubünden. Bündener Bauernverband, Chur, Switzerland, http://www.gr.ch/DE/institutionen/verwaltung/dvs/alg/dokumentation/ meliorationen/Dokumentliste%20Meliorationen/Bericht_Bewaesserung.pdf, 12/07/2010.
    [CH04]: Fuhrer, J. & Jasper, K. 2009. Bewässerungsbedürftigkeit in der Schweiz: Schlussbericht. Forschungsanstalt Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon (ART), http://www.agroscope.admin.ch/ publikationen/einzelpublikation/index.html?lang=en&aid=26435&pid=26883, 18/01/2010.
    [CH05]: EEA. 2011. Corine Land Cover 2000 seamless vector data - version 15 (08/2011). http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/ ds_resolveuid/e4618505e7d92a741dfdd9cbe8 a05adc, 20/05/2012.