Overview of Study Area - Historical Land Use/Land Cover Classification Using Remote Sensing - page 40

Table 3.1 General statistical information on the ERB
Country-name Basin-area (km 2 ) Length (km) Catchment-area (%)

Turkey 98,000 1,230 62

Syria 59,500 710 38

Iraq 140,000 1,060 0

Saudi Arabia 52,500 0 0

Jordan 105 0 0

Total 350,000 3,000 100

Source modified from Kattan 2008 and FAO 2009

3.3 Irrigation Projects in the ERB

Table 3.2 explains the water requirements in the three major ERB countries. The
available level of irrigated agricultural projects in Syria on the Euphrates is
194,000 ha (although according to other sources, it is about 250,000 ha). Over the
coming decade, some further 542,275 ha will be irrigated, thus in the future, some
636, 275 ha will be irrigated in Syria with water from the Euphrates. The future
water demand, including steam water, equals 13.263 billion m 3 . If we deduct from
the returning water 2,463 billion m 3 , one obtains net 10.8 billion m 3 , representing
the water needs of Syria from the Euphrates. This amount represents 34 % of
current flow. In 1987, Syria and Turkey signed a water agreement over the
Euphrates River, determining the water flows on the Syrian-Turkish border at
500 m 3 /s. In 1990 a similar deal was agreed to between Syria and Iraq, dividing
the Euphrates into the proportions of 42 % for Syria and 58 % for Iraq, thus
allowing the current water situation for Syria of not more than
15.7 9 0.42 = 6.627 billion m 3 /pa Euphrates water. The 15.7 billion m 3 /pa cor-
responds to the amount of water that flows from Turkey towards Syria, as a result
of the temporary agreement of 1987. Research sources expect that the 6.627
billion m 3 /pa Euphrates water are sufficient only for the irrigation of 308,000 ha
instead of the planned 640,000 ha. According to others, a deficit of one billion m 3
in Syria will give a proportion of withering from 26,000 ha of agricultural land and
transform it into unusable land. This would lead to at least a total of 110,000 ha
from 640,000 ha, that could be converted to unusable lands (Al-Fares 2007 ).
Syria too has its individual strategies for irrigation expansion within the
Euphrates Basin (Table 3.3 , Fig. 3.2 ). The water need for such land, assuming a
water application rate of about 10,000 m 3 ha -1 yr -1 ), would be
6,450 9 l0,000 = 64,500,000 m 3 , or about 16 % of the unregulated stream of the
Euphrates where it enters Syria from Turkey (Beaumont 1996 ).