| dc.description | Total worldwide withdrawals of fresh water are estimated at 3,600 km? annually, of which
2,500 km? is used to irrigate crops (Falkenmark and Rockstrom 2004). The rest is used in
industry and for domestic purpose. Approximately 56% of the world’s 271 million ha of
irrigated area of all crops is in Asia, where rice accounts from 40-46% of the net irrigated
area of all crops (Dawe 2005). At the field level, rice receives up to 2-3 times more water
than other irrigated crops, but an unknown proportion of the water losses from individual
fields are reused by other fields downstream. Assuming a reuse fraction of 25%, it can be
estimated that irrigated rice receives some 34-43% of the total world’s irrigation water, or
24-30% of the total world’s freshwater withdrawals (Tuong and Bouman, 2005). | en_US |
