Burundi

Area equipped for irrigation in Burundi is 21 430 ha [BI01]. The figures refer to the year 2000. No recent sub-national statistics on irrigated area have been available. The irrigated area is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Burundi irrigation areas in PDF or Burundi irrigation areas in Excel.

Irrigated area was assigned to specific grid cells by combining a database of irrigation projects in Africa [BI02], information on irrigated area per district representing the situation in year 1985 [BI03], indicative information on the location of irrigated areas as published in the AQUASTAT country profile [BI01], land cover information provided by the AFRICOVER project [BI04] and a map of micro-dams used in irrigation projects [BI05]. AFRICOVER lists two polygones of irrigated land cover type in the eastern part of the country. One was classified as irrigated sugar cane and the other one as irrigated herbaceous. 160 ha irrigated rice and 1 450 ha irrigated sugar cane have been reported for the eastern part of the country [BI01]. Therefore these areas were assigned to the polygones derived from AFRICOVER. 2 800 ha of irrigated land were assigned to 28 locations indicated on the map of micro-dams used for irrigation [BI05]. Information in the AQUASTAT country profile and the 1985-district data indicate that there exists much irrigation in l’Imbo-plain (districts of Gihanga, Mpanda and Mutimbuzi). Irrigated area was thus distributed to areas in that region covered by herbaceous crops [BI04]. Additionally the FAO-irrigation project database lists some very large projects in upland areas adjacent to the l’Imbo plain. These projects are assumed to represent rice cultivation and irrigated areas was distributed to herbaceous crop areas [BI04] surrounding these projects.

Since wells are only used for drinking water [BI01] irrigated area from groundwater was set to 0. Based on the harvested area of irrigated crops in full/partial control schemes it was assumed that the whole area equipped for irrigation is also actually used for irrigation.

References

[BI01]: FAO. 2005. AQUASTAT country profile Burundi. FAO, Rome, Italy.
[BI02]: FAO. 1987 (updated in 2005). Irrigated areas in Africa. FAO, Rome, Italy.
[BI03]: PNUD/FAO. 1985. La mise en valeur hydro-agricole au Burundi. Etat actuel et stratégie pour l'avenir. Rapport préparé par N. Van Leeuwen. Rome.
[BI04]: FAO. 2005. AFRICOVER, Burundi - Spatially Aggregated Multipurpose Landcover database, FAO, Rome, Italy, http://www.africover.org, 13/12/2004.
[BI05]: World Bank, Ministere de l'agriculture et de l'elevage. 2004. Projet de rehabilitation et d'appui au secteur agricole du Burundi (PRASAB). Rapport d'etude sur l'analyse d'impact environnemental et social du projet (available at http://www-wds.worldbank.org).