TITLE:
Wheat yield scenarios for rainwater harvesting at Northern Sinjar Mountain, Iraq
AUTHORS:
Saleh Zakaria, Nadhir Al-Ansari, Sven Knutsson
KEYWORDS:
Rainwater Harvesting; Supplemental Irrigation; Wheat Yield; Sinjar; Iraq.
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.5 No.10,
September
29,
2013
ABSTRACT: Iraq is part of West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region. The area is known as dry land, famous with gap of crop yield as a result of the water shortage problem. Six basins with total catchment area of 614.19 km2 at rain-fed of Northern Sinjar District (Iraq) had been chosen to investigate both of the potential of rainwater harvesting (RWH) and three supplemental irrigation (SI) scenarios S1, S2, and S3 (100%, 75%, and 50% of full irrigation requirement) to support the wheat yield (bread and durum) under various rainfall conditions for the study period 1990-2009. The results indicated that, the total volume of harvested runoff can be considered for irrigation practices, that reached up to 42.4, 25.1, 0.6, 10.9 (× 106 m3) during 1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1998-1999, and 2001-2002, respectively. The total irrigated area ranged between 10.9 - 5163.7 and 8.8 - 3595.7 (ha) for bread and durum wheat crop for the four selected seasons respectively. The yield scenarios for supplemental irrigation condition Y1, Y2, and Y3 give 68 - 9712, 94 - 12,999, and 105 - 22,806 Ton for bread wheat, and for durum wheat give 56 - 8035, 87 - 10,906, and 103 - 17,396 Ton.