Mohammad Valipour - Department of Water Engineering, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran

The aim of this paper is prediction of irrigated agriculture in Asia Pacific in 2035 and 2060 using study of FAO indices from 1962 to 2011. For this purpose, all necessary information was gathered from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Among all presented data in the FAO database, 10 indices were selected (due to more importance and more availability for all the regions in Asia Pacific). These indices are permanent crops per cultivated area (%), rural population per total population (%), total economically active population in agriculture per total economically active population (%), human development index (HDI), national rainfall index (NRI) (mm/yr), value added to gross domestic product (GDP) by agriculture (%), irrigation water requirement (mm/yr), percent of total cultivated area drained (%), difference between NIR and irrigation water requirement (mm/yr), and irrigated agriculture per cultivated area (%). These indices were investigated for all 9 regions in the study areas and amount of irrigated agriculture per cultivated area (10th index) was estimated by three different scenarios and using the other 9 indices. The results show that variations of irrigated agriculture are 4.4% to 41.1% and 16.1% to 88.8% in 2035 and 2060, respectively.

Asia, Asia-Pacific, Irrigation, Regression analysis, Sustainable development