Future of agricultural water management in Americas

The study is aimed at estimation of area equipped for irrigation in Americas in 2035 and 2060 using study of agricultural water management during 1962 to 2011. For this purpose, all necessary information was gathered from FAO of United Nations and their values were checked using World Bank Group (WBG) data base. Among all presented data in FAO database, 10 indexes were selected for importance and more availability basis for all the regions in Americas and analyzed for all 5 regions in the study area. These indexes 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/year), value added to gross domestic product (GDP) by agriculture (%), irrigation water requirement (mm/year), percent of total cultivated area drained, difference between NRI and irrigation water requirement (mm/year), and area equipped for irrigation per cultivated area (%). The amount of area equipped for irrigation per cultivated area (10th index) was estimated for three different scenarios by the other 9 indexes. The results showed that trend of permanent crops per cultivated area (with the exception of Northern America), HDI, irrigation water requirement and percentage of total cultivated area drained is increasing and trend of rural population per total population, total economically active population in agriculture per total economically active population, value added to GDP by agriculture, and difference between NRI and irrigation water requirement is decreasing. The results also showed changes of area equipped for irrigation as 9.1 to 26.3% and 17.6 to 51.3% in 2035 and 2060, respectively.