2013 Volume 26 Issue 2 Pages 191-201
Irrigation accounts for about 70% of global freshwater withdrawals and 90% of consumptive water use globally. The irrigation water use is projected to continue increasing due to production of foods and biofuels in the future. In this study, we focused on the estimation of the temporal change in net irrigation water requirement from river, large reservoirs, medium-sized reservoirs and Non-renewable Non-local Blue Water (NNBW) for the period of 1960-2000 using the integrated global water resource model (H08). Our estimation of the net irrigation water requirement which is withdrawn from four resources (river, large reservoirs, medium-sized reservoirs and NNBW) has increased from 1960 to 2000. Global net irrigation water requirement which accounts up to 49-60% has been most dependent on medium-sized reservoirs since 1976. The water requirement in India and USA is heavily dependent on medium-sized reservoirs and NNBW.
