Monitoring Agricultural Drought in the Near East - Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought: A Global Study - page 209

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Fig ure 16.1 Aridity in North Africa and West Asia.

[209

Because of the high degree of aridity in large parts of the region, agri-
cu lture in the Near East is particularly vulnerable to drought. Most of the
ag ricultural systems depend on rainfall. Irrigation water is scarce, and al-
th ough the area under irrigation is expanding, supply constraints are likely
to increase. The reasons are limitations on the total size of the extractable
w ater resources, consideration of environmental and socioeconomic im-
pa cts of large dam-building programs, continued population growth cou-
pl ed with increasing urbanization, and competition among communities,
in dustrial and service sectors, and agriculture for increasingly limited wa-
te r resources. Irrigated agriculture currently consumes an average of about

Line
——
4.9
——
Long
PgEn

[209

Ta ble 16.1 Climatic moisture regimes in North Africa and West Asia

Moisture regime

% Hyper- % % Semi- % Sub- % % Per-

Area (km 2 )

Country/region arid Arid arid humid Humid humid

Algeria 71.7 15.9 8.6 3.8 0.0 0.0 2,381,741

Egypt 91.5 8.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 997,739

Ga za Strip 0.0 16.9 83.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 363

Iraq 11.6 69.9 17.3 1.2 0.0 0.0 435,052

Israel 2.6 55.3 34.7 7.4 0.0 0.0 20,700

Jordan 23.5 69.8 6.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 88,946

Lebanon 0.0 0.0 19.5 55.3 15.1 10.1 10,230

Libya 80.9 17.6 1.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 1,757,000

Morocco 0.0 41.8 55.5 2.7 0.0 0.0 458,730

Syria 0.0 71.3 23.1 3.3 1.4 0.9 185,180

Tunisia 14.4 52.3 30.3 3.0 0.0 0.0 164,150

Turkey 0.0 0.0 29.6 48.7 18.5 3.2 779,452

W est Bank 0.0 20.4 74.4 5.2 0.0 0.0 5,900

% of total area 56.8 21.4 12.4 6.9 2.0 0.4 7,285,183

Source: Computed from the GIS data archived at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry
Areas (ICARDA).