COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2017
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land. Lastly, Africa and Asia, covering most of the OIC member countries, have very low level
renewable fresh water for per hectares compared to America, Europe and the average of the
world.
Figure 22. Renewable Water Potential in the OIC by Sub-Regions
Source: Calculated by using AQUASTAT and FAOSTAT
OIC member countries have 7,261 km3/year of renewable water resources for the period
2013-2017 that accounts for 13.3 percent of the world’s total. Taking into account the fact that
OIC member countries have 28 percent of world’s total agricultural area, we can say that, the
majority of the Member Countries face water scarcity. This observation can be clearly seen
from Figure 22. Average renewable water resources per hectare of agricultural land in the OIC
is 5,199 m3/ha, which is lower than half of the World’s average.
At the sub-regional level, renewable water resources disperse unequally in the OIC. Moreover,
the share of renewable water resources to the agricultural land varies considerably among its
sub-regions. While Asian Group has 71 percent of the renewable water resources in the OIC, it
possesses 9,965 m3/ha renewable water per hectare of agricultural land, Arab Group ownes 4
percent of renewable water resources with 554 m 3/ha renewable water per hectare of
agricultural land.
Since OIC member countries are dispersed over a large geographical region, on four continents
and have wide range of climate conditions, big differences are seen at the country level
regarding amount of renewable water resources. In terms of their renewable water resources
per hectare of agricultural land, some OIC member countries are very rich while most of them
are face water-scarcity.
Table 7 and Table 8 indicate renewable water-rich OIC member countries and renewable
water-poor OIC member countries, respectively. Analyzing Table 7, it is seen that Suriname,
5.079
554
9.965
5.199
11.114
% 25.0
% 4.0
% 71.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0
2.000
4.000
6.000
8.000
10.000
12.000
African Group Arab Group Asian Group OIC Average World
Percent m3/ha
Renewable Water Resources Per Hectare (left axis) Share of RWR in the OIC (right axis)