Potential impact of climate change on agricultural water demand : a case study of Jericho and al Aghwar District, Palestine

Dissertant

Abu Jamus, Sirin Jihad

Thesis advisor

al-Mimi, Ziyad

Comitee Members

Abu Mahdi, Mahir
Mari, Amir

University

Birzeit University

Faculty

Institute of Environmental and Water Studies

University Country

Palestine (West Bank)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2008

English Abstract

Global climate change induced by increased greenhouse gas concentration has been widely accepted.

Agriculture and water resources are the most vulnerable to climate change and are expected to be exposed to direct effects of temperature and precipitation change, but still the potential impact of global climate change is one of the least addressed factors in water resources planning in developing countries.

Moreover, the potential impacts of climate change have not been quantified at local level yet.

Considering this fact, this study aims to evaluate the agricultural water demand under different suggested climate change scenarios for Palestine.

To evaluate the potential impact of climate change on agricultural water demand, Jericho and Al Aghwar district was selected and the crop water requirements, for the irrigated open-field crops in the district, were estimated under different suggested scenarios of changing temperature and precipitation using the CROPWAT computer model.

The results clearly show that crop water requirement (CWR) is very sensitive to temperature increase; CWR increases by an average of 2.7 %, 5.4 % and 8 % as temperature increases by 1°C, 2°C and 3°C, respectively, to compensate the water lost in evapotranspiration.

Changing precipitation doesn’t affect the crop water requirements, but it affects the amount of irrigation water requirements (IWR); as the effective rain provides part of the crop water requirement.

Scenarios of changing precipitation show an increase in IWR by an average of 1.47 % and 5.53 % for a decrease in precipitation by 10 % and 20 % respectively.

The other scenario of increasing precipitation shows a decrease by an average of 1.44 % and 2.84 % in the IWR for an increase by 10 % and 20 % in precipitation respectively.

The total amount of irrigation water required for the district gets greater when combined the scenario of increasing temperature with the scenario of decreasing precipitation.

Acknowledgment I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.

Ziad Mimi for his support, guidance and cooperation throughout the progress of this study.

Next I want to thank Dr.

Erik de Ruyter van Steveninck from UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands, for his fruitful advice and recommendations during developing the thesis proposal.

My special thanks also to Dr.

Jetze Heun, Po WER director and Dr.

Maher Abu-Madi, Po WER research coordinator for giving me this opportunity to visit UNESCO-IHE and benefit from its extensive resources.

Also, a special thanks is extended to everybody at UNESCO-IHE for their help, support, comments and recommendations.

My thanks also to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, Palestinian Water Authority, Palestinian Metrological Center / Geographical center and the Palestinian Hydrology Group for providing the data and references required.

This is a great opportunity to express my respect and gratefulness to my mother in law, Yusra Takrouri ; I wouldn’t have made it through all the hard work without her help and support.

Last and surely not least, I want to acknowledge my wonderful family, friends and colleagues, for their encouragement.

It is always impossible to personally thank everyone who has facilitated successful completion of this study.

To those of you who I did not specifically name, I also give my thanks for moving me towards my goal.

Main Subjects

Earth Sciences, Water and Environment

Topics

• Palestine
• Jericho
• Irrigation water

No. of Pages

64

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-302760