Ukraine

Until 1992 irrigation infrastructure was installed on a total area of 2 624 000 ha. The highest construction rates of irrigation systems was registered between 1965 and 1985. After 1992 the construction of new irrigation systems was virtually stopped and several of the existing schemes went out of operation. While the area actually irrigated was still 2 291 600 ha in 1990, it decreased to 1 845 100 ha in 1995, 1 402 700 ha in 1998 and only 543 300 ha in 2001. In 2002 area actually irrigated was 730 100 ha and in 2003 it was 731 400 ha [UA01]. The reported lack of government funds to provide for proper operation and maintenance of the irrigation canals (total length 59 300 km), pumping stations (in total 13 700) and other hydro-technical constructions (in total 475 000) indicates that the area actually irrigated will, at least in the near future, very likely not reach the extent observed in the beginning of the 1990s again. Sub-national irrigation statistics were available for the year 1985 and were summing up to 2 395 500 ha [UA02]. This is very close to recent figures. It was reported that actually existing main and secondary level irrigation systems can provide watering on an area of 2 448 000 ha [UA03]. It was therefore decided to use the figures reported for the year 1985 without any changes. The irrigated area per province estimated that way is visible in the table below and also can be downloaded as Ukraine irrigation areas in PDF or Ukraine irrigation areas in Excel.

The irrigation schemes of the country were digitized from irrigation maps published in [UA03] and area equipped for irrigation was assigned to these digitized polygons.

The whole area equipped for irrigation is irrigated with water extracted from surface water sources ([UA01], [UA04]). Area actually irrigated was set to 731 400 ha as indicated for year 2003 [UA01].

References

[UA01]: Kovalenko, P., Zhovtonog, O., Filipenko, L., Kruchenyk, V. & Michailov, J. 2006. Country report from Ukraine. In: Dirksen, W. and Huppert, W. (ed.). Irrigation sector reform in Central and Eastern European countries. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Eschborn, Germany, 607-667.
[UA02]: Unknown. Irrigated area per region in 1985. Data table available in the AQUASTAT library.
[UA03]: Zhovtonog, O. 2005. History of irrigation in Ukraine - bridge from the past to future developments. In: Integrated Land and Water Resources Management in History, Special Edition 2, Siegburg, Germany, 205-218.
[UA04]: FAO. 2012. AQUASTAT country profile of Ukraine, version 1997. FAO, Rome, Italy.