October 18th, 2021
SUEN functions as the Coordination Office of the Blue Peace in the Middle East, an initiative with the long-term vision of transforming water into a potential instrument of cooperation and peace through concrete actions.
As nearly 80% of water is consumed in agriculture in the region, the first working theme was chosen as agricultural water use efficiency. In this scope, one of the project components to be coordinated and implemented by SUEN is capacity development programs.
In this regard, the second of the capacity development programs was held in Izmir on 11-15 October 2021 under the central theme of “Modern Approaches to Improving Irrigation Water Use Efficiency” by the participation of irrigation experts from partner countries, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.
Participants were given information on below topics followed by discussions to share knowledge and experiences in each country.
- Future of irrigation and sustainability
- Irrigation water use efficiency, water and economic productivity
- Utilization possibilities of marginal water in agriculture
- Master planning of irrigation investments
- Governance of irrigation schemes and participatory irrigation
- Principles for irrigation fees and tariff setting and cost recovery
- Monitoring and evaluation (performance assessment) of irrigation systems
- Modern irrigation technologies and practices: drip irrigation and fertigation, sprinkler irrigation
- Deficit irrigation and adaptation of irrigation plans for drought
- Use of remote sensing and GIS in agricultural water management
- Soil salinity and sustainable salinity management
- Basin sectoral water allocation plans
In addition, field visits were paid to WUA’s and irrigation facilities to observe the practices in-situ.
In the last session of the program (overall evaluation), country experts shared their experiences and opinions for the way forward to achieve higher efficiencies in agricultural water use.
