Kuwait

The total cultivated area of the 4 545 holdings in Kuwait was 10 142 ha in year 2006, of which 3 935 ha of cultivated land were located in district Al-Ahmadi and 6 207 ha in district Al-Jahra [KW01]. The irrigated area per district is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Kuwait irrigation areas in PDF or Kuwait irrigation areas in Excel.Because of the climate conditions, all the cultivated area is irrigated and it was therefore assumed that area equipped for irrigation was similar to the farm area. Harvested area of irrigated crops was 13 463 ha in the same year, of which winter crops accounted for 5 970 ha, summer crops for 1 764 ha, perennial crops for 3 913 ha and green house crops for 1 815 ha [KW01].

The irrigated areas were digitized from Landsat satellite images [KW02]. The digitized areas were in good agreement with areas shown as vegetated in recent governorate and municipality maps [KW03].

Area actually irrigated in year 2003 was similar to area equipped for irrigation [KW04]. Therefore and because of the high harvested area of irrigated crops it was assumed that area actually irrigated in year 2006 was also equal to area equipped for irrigation. The share of area equipped for irrigation with groundwater was set to 76.3 percent of the total area equipped for irrigation (7 742 ha), similar to the share of groundwater use in agriculture reported for year 2002 [KW04]. The remaining area equipped for irrigation was irrigated with treated waste water or desalinated water.

References

[KW01]: Central Statistics Office. 2009. Annual Statistical Abstract 2008. State of Kuwait, Central Statistical Office, pp. 84-86.
[KW02]: Earth Satellite Corporation. 2004. Landsat GeoCover (2000/ETM+) Edition Mosaics, tiles 071-309 and 071-310. Sioux Falls, USA, USGS, http://glcfapp.umiacs.umd.edu:8080.
[KW03]: Kuwait Information Office. 2004. Maps (available at http://www.kuwait-info.com).
[KW04]: FAO. 2013. AQUASTAT country profile of Kuwait, version 2008. FAO, Rome, Italy.