Assessment of water and land resources of Azerbaijan

Aliyev Zakir Husein oglu, Hokuma Karimova

Azerbaijan Scientific-Research Institute of Irrigation and Erosion of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan

Abstract:

In the article the problems of assessment of water are concidered according to land resources of Azerbaijan. The authors note that currently in the country out of the total turnover of the land displays a wide area unsuitable for agricultural production due to the construction of individual buildings and structures, elevation of groundwater level, the development of various types of erosion and for other reasons. So, one person in 1959 had 0.36 ha of arable land, 1970 – 0.23 ha in 1979 – 0.21 hectares, in 2006 dropped to 0.155 hectares currently, more than 42.8% of the whole territory of the Republic (70...85 % in some regions) is exposed to various erosive processes. A critical question is the availability suitable for agriculture water resources. By estimations of authors of the water resources of the country amount to 32.5 billion m³, and in dry years this figure is reduced to of 23.16 billion m³. The results of the study revealed that up to 96 % of irrigated land is watered mainly traditional irrigation methods (furrow and overlap, superficial way), and in other ways with the use of low-intensity progressive water saving technologies of irrigation systems with up to 5 % of the total irrigated land. According to the researches, in 2020 the total annual value of water resources per capita in Azerbaijan will be 2 times less than in Armenia, and 7 times less than in Georgia. It is proposed to increase the efficiency of agricultural production in the production unit of crop production from use of water resources by the year 2025 at the level of 1 kg/m³ and 1.5 kg/m³ by 2050.

Keywords:

Water resources, erosion, arable land, agricultural production, global warming, Azerbaijan.