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

    Niger

    Area equipped for irrigation is 73 663 ha [NE01], of which about 60 000 ha are equipped wetlands. The figures refer to year 2005. Irrigated area per district was available for year 2002 and adds up to 67 323 ha [NE02]. Irrigated areas in the provinces of Tillaberi and Tahoua were scaled so that the country-totals meet the figures as reported for the year 2005. The irrigated area per department estimated that way is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Niger irrigation areas in PDF or Niger irrigation areas in Excel.

    The location and command area of 30 irrigation projects was derived from the FAO irrigation map for Africa [NE03]. The total area equipped for irrigation in these schemes is 7 700 ha. Then irrigated area was also assigned to areas along the Niger river [NE01] and to cultivated areas on river valley bottoms as digitized from satellite imagery [NE03].

    Area actually irrigated was 65 615 ha (89 percent of area equipped for irrigation) in year 2005 [NE01]. Percentage area irrigated from groundwater was set to the related percentage of irrigation water use from groundwater (1.86 percent).

    References

    [NE01]: FAO. 2005. AQUASTAT country profile Niger, FAO, Rome, Italy.
    [NE02]: FAO. 2002. Niger – Stratégie nationale de développement de l’irrigation et de collecte des eaux de ruissellement.
    [NE03]: Earth Satellite Corporation, 2004. Landsat GeoCover (2000/ETM+) Edition Mosaics, tiles 071-203, 071-204, 071-205, 071-215, 071-216, 071-217, 071-229, 071-230 and 071-231. Sioux Falls, USA, USGS (available at http://glcfapp.umiacs.umd.edu:8080/esdi/index.jsp).