Maurice L. Albertson

Future of irrigation in balanced third world development

Abstract Almost 80% of the world population lives in developing countries and 80% of these people live in small settlements or villages and are the ‘rural poor’ whose lives often are plagued by serious health, water and sanitation problems and food shortages. Many countries have changed from self sufficiency and exporters of food to importers of food. Food production often can only be increased by improving or rehabilitating existing irrigation systems and by building new irrigation projects. Yet, the rate of growth in world irrigated area has greatly decreased in the last decade. For North America, the irrigated area has actually decreased. Around cities, sewage effluent will become increasingly important as a water source for irrigation. By the year 2000, there could be 18 megacities with more than 10 million people each in the Third World. Energy sources must be developed to meet the needs for irrigation and fertilizer manufacture. Development of the Third World must simultaneously take place in all key sectors (irrigation, agriculture, water supply, health, energy, education etc.), so that a balance is achieved and progress in one sector is not hampered by stagnation in another. Balanced development must also use both hard technology (roads, canals, structures, machinery, technology etc.) and soft technology (social structure, human interactive processes, motivational techniques, social participation etc.).