Latvia

Area equipped for irrigation was about 20 000 ha in 1995, all of it sprinkler irrigation [LV01]. However, the restructuring of the agricultural sector caused a strong decline of the area equipped for irrigation. According to EUROSTAT the irrigable area was 560 ha in 2000, 1 150 ha in 2003 and 790 ha in 2005 [LV02]. Areas equipped with sprinkler irrigation infrastructure were reported by district for the year 2001 and were summing up to 569 ha [LV03]. The sprinkler irrigation areas by district were scaled so that the country totals were equal to the maximum irrigable area as reported by EUROSTAT (1 150 ha). The irrigated area per district is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Latvia irrigation areas in PDF or Latvia irrigation areas in Excel.

The main irrigated crops are vegetables, potatoes, sugar beets and strawberries [LV01], [LV04]. Since irrigation maps were not available for Latvia, irrigated area was assigned to polygons as extracted from the Corine 2000 land cover database for Europe [LV05] classified as non-irrigated arable land (211), fruit trees and berry plantations (222) or complex cultivation patterns (242).

Statistics on the source of irrigation water were not available for Latvia. Based on the ratio between groundwater abstractions for agriculture, forestry and fishery and total water abstractions for agriculture, forestry and fishery in period 2003-2007 [LV06] area equipped for irrigation with groundwater was estimated at 80 ha (7 percent of total AEI).

References

[LV01]: FAO. 2012. AQUASTAT country profile of Latvia, version 1997. FAO, Rome, Italy.
[LV02]: Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT). 2011. Irrigable and irrigated areas. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/ page/portal/agri_environmental_indicators/data/ database, 28/11/2011.
[LV03]: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia. 2002. Results of 2001 Agricultural Census. http://data.csb.lv/EN/Database/Agriculture/Agriculture.asp, 01/08/2006.
[LV04]: Kucera, L. & Genovese, G. (ed.). 2004. Crop monographies on Central European countries – MOCA Study. Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Directorate General, Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen, Agriculture & Fisheries Unit, Ispra, Italy, http://agrifish.jrc.it/marsstat/Crop\_Yield\_Forecasting/MOCA/INDEX.HTM, 07/07/2006.
[LV05]: EEA. 2005. Corine land cover 2000 - vector by country (CLC2000), version 1. http://dataservice.eea.europa.eu/dataservice/metadetails.asp?id=667, 29/08/2005.
[LV06]: Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT). 2011. Annual water abstraction by source and by sector. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/ environment/data/database, 28/11/2011.