Canada

Data on area equipped for irrigation were not available for entire Canada. In contrast, data on area actually irrigated were collected by the agricultural census 2006 for provinces, census agricultural regions, census divisions and census consolidated subdivisions ([CA01], [CA02]). Area equipped for irrigation was estimated by scaling area actually irrigated reported by the agricultural census so that the sum of irrigated area was similar to irrigated areas in inventories available at the province level for Alberta [CA03], British Columbia [CA04] and Saskatchewan [CA05]. Scaling coefficients were 1.201 for Alberta, 1.63 for British Columbia, 1.995 for Saskatchewan and were set to 2.0 for the other provinces similar to those found for Saskatchewan. Total area equipped for irrigation computed that way was 1 218 345 ha while area actually irrigated according to the census 2006 was 845 737 ha. The irrigated area per province is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Canada irrigation areas in PDF or Canada irrigation areas in Excel.

The boundaries of the irrigation districts and the location of private irrigators were digitized from maps available for the provinces Alberta [CA03] and Saskatchewan [CA05]. All the other irrigated area was assigned to cells classified as cropland in the GLC2000 land cover classification for North America [CA06]. In some census divisions the irrigated area as reported by the census was larger than the area classified as cropland by the GLC2000. Then also cells classified as cropland mosaics were assumed to be irrigated.

Sources of irrigation water were available for the provinces of Alberta (per basin), British Columbia (per water region) and Ontario ([CA07], [CA04], [CA08]). More than 80 percent of the total irrigated area of the country is located in these three provinces. For the other provinces area irrigated from ground- and surface water was estimated based on statistics and information provided by similar reports ([CA09], [CA10], [CA11]). Total area equipped for irrigation with groundwater was 156 379 ha (13 percent of the total area equipped for irrigation) and mainly located in the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec.

References

[CA01]: Statistics Canada. 2008. 2006 Census of Agriculture, Farm Data and Farm Operator Data, Table 4.12-1 – All irrigation use, 2005 and 2000. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/95-629-x/2007000/4182415-eng.htm, 05/11/2010.
[CA02]: Statistics Canada. 2008. 2006 Census of Agriculture, Table 2.12 – Farms in the territories - Total irrigation use for calendar year prior to the census, 2005 and 2000. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/95-629-x/2/4182393-eng.htm, 05/11/2010.
[CA03]: Government of Alberta. 2010. Alberta Irrigation Information 2009 - Facts and figures for the year 2009. http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$Department/deptdocs.nsf/all/irr7401/$FILE/ altairriginfo2009.pdf, 05/11/2010.
[CA04]: British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Food. 2000. Irrigated Area in British Columbia. Irrigation Factsheet. http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/resmgmt/publist/500Series/550100-1.pdf, 05/11/2010.
[CA05]: Saskatchewan Agriculture, Food, and Rural Revitalization. 2003. Irrigation in Saskatchewan. http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/Default.aspx?DN=59abfaba-401e-49fb-91d0-d357692288d4, 05/11/2010.
[CA06]: Latifovic, R., Zhu, Z., Cihlar, J., Beaubien, J., Fraser, R. 2003. The Land Cover Map for North America in the Year 2000, map version 2. GLC2000 database, European Commision Joint Research Centre, http://www.gvm.jrc.it/glc2000, 12/01/2005.
[CA07]: Alberta Environment. 2007. Current and future water use in Alberta. Alberta Environment and AMEC Earth & Environmental, Edmonton, Canada, http://www.assembly.ab.ca/lao/ library/egovdocs/2007/alen/164708.pdf, 13/08/2009.
[CA08]: National ad-hoc Committee on Groundwater. 2003. Canadian framework for collaboration on groundwater. National ad-hoc Committee on Groundwater, http://ess.nrcan.gc.ca/ 2002_2006/gwp/framework_e.php, 13/08/2009.
[CA09]: CBCL Limited. 2003. Agricultural water supply issues: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. Report prepared for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, http://www4.agr.gc.ca/resources/prod/doc/pfra/pdf/awsi-paea\_atl\_e.pdf, 13/08/2009.
[CA10]: Kulshreshtha, S.N. 2006. Irrigation water productivity in Saskatchewan and Manitoba – an economic perspective. Presentation held at the CANCID workshop sustainable irrigation on the Prairies, Saskatoon, March 23, 2006, http://www.irrigationsaskatchewan.com/ICDC/ icdc_events.htm, 13/08/2009.
[CA11]: Saskatchewan Environment. 2005. Saskatchewan State of the Environment Report 2005. Saskatchewan Environment, http://www.publications.gov.sk.ca/details.cfm?p=10599&cl=1, 13/08/2009.