Eswatini

In 2000, when the country was still named Swaziland, the area equipped for irrigation was 49 843 ha [SZ01]. Sub-national statistics added up to 49 860 ha [SZ02] and were scaled to fit to the statistics reported in the AQUASTAT-country profile at the national level. The irrigated area per ecological zone is visible in the table below and in the downloadable files Swaziland irrigation areas in PDF and Swaziland irrigation areas in Excel.

Areas equipped for irrigation were digitized from a map published in [SZ02] or derived from the South-African land cover data base [SZ03]. The shapes of the boundaries of the digitized irrigation areas were improved by using satellite imagery [SZ04].

In year 2002 area actually irrigated was 90 percent of the area equipped for irrigation (44 859 ha) [SZ01]. Public and private large scale schemes usually extract the irrigation water from reservoirs, while in small scale private schemes irrigation water is normally abstracted directly from the rivers using electric pumps [SZ02]. Based on this information area equipped for irrigation with groundwater was estimated at 1 000 ha.

References

[SZ01]: FAO. 2005. AQUASTAT [country profile Swaziland, FAO, Rome, Italy.
[SZ02]: Riddell, P. J. and Manyatsi, A. M. 2003. Water use challenges and opportunities in the Swaziland agricultural sector. FAO / Government of Swaziland, TCP/SWA/2801(A).
[SZ03]: Thompson, M.W. 1999. South African national land cover database project. CSIR. Data set on CD-ROM, available at: http://www.sac.co.za
[SZ04]: Earth Satellite Corporation. 2004. Landsat GeoCover (2000/ETM+) Edition Mosaics, tile 071-703. Sioux Falls, USA, USGS (available at http://glcfapp.umiacs.umd.edu:8080/esdi/index.jsp).