As agricultural irrigation is the highest consumer of freshwater resources across the Middle East accounting for more than 80% of all water withdrawals, the first central theme of the new Blue Peace in the Middle East structure was chosen as water use efficiency in agriculture.

Within this scope, the project of “Disseminating Knowledge to Improve Agricultural Water Use Efficiency”, coordinated and implemented by SUEN as the Coordination Office, has been completed with the last project action; namely the final workshop to share the study results with country experts.

As part of project dissemination activities, a workshop and observational study tour was held in Şanlıurfa, Türkiye on 24-26 May 2022 with the participation of irrigation experts from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Türkiye.

The key outcomes and messages of the report titled as “Improving agricultural water use efficiency and productivity in the Middle East: Pressures, status, impacts and responses” were presented and discussed. Each country also made presentations on irrigation governance and good practices in their countries to facilitate exchange of knowledge and experience. In addition, field visits were paid to WUA’s and irrigation facilities to observe the practices on-site.

State-of-the-art technologies (e.g. RS, modelling, informatics etc.) as well as governance issues (e.g. rationale pricing, participatory irrigation management etc.) were highlighted as important areas for possible collaborative actions.

As Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) nexus is identified as the new umbrella theme for the BPME initiative’s next phase, it is foreseen that the completed works on agricultural water use efficiency will be further worked on in the future as a follow-up to the study.

Click here for the reports prepared within the scope of the study.