TY  - Data
T1  - irrigated land
A1  - Documentation Information Center
DO  - 10.12389/ariddc.02013
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026-09-03
PB  - Arid Land Ecology and Resources Science Data Center
AB  - Thorne and Peterson wrote in the preface of their works that more than half of the world's population depends on the food produced on irrigated land for food supply. According to the author's approximate estimation (see Table 2 of this book for the data), in the history of thousands of years, human beings have cultivated 106.36 million hectares of semi desert and desert land1. Academician Л. И. Prasolov calculated according to the world soil map and the world agricultural map of И. Ф. Makarov (see the World Atlas of the Soviet Union), and pointed out that the total non irrigated and irrigated agricultural land in the world was about 804million hectares. Among them, the productivity of irrigated land, which accounts for 13% of agricultural land, is equivalent to the sum of the remaining 87% of non irrigated farmland. These figures prove the great significance of irrigation measures in the world economy. Obviously, irrigation is particularly effective in arid, semi desert or desert areas with a huge area (about 3.5-4 billion hectares).According to the calculation of academician Л. И. Prasolov, 70million hectares of cultivated agricultural land are distributed in the chestnut soil belt; In addition, only using modern agricultural technology, another 286million hectares of chestnut soil can be reclaimed here. Irrigation of these lands (356million hectares) alone can bring about a huge increase in agricultural production for mankind. According to the data of Ⅺ. И. Prasolov, it is relatively easy to expand the irrigation area in desert areas by at least 113million hectares.It can be seen that the earth has a huge and relatively easy to obtain land reserve, which can double the expansion of irrigated agriculture. If we add at least four times the possibility of increasing cultivated land in other wetter soil zones that require little irrigation (according to Л. И. Prasolov), then the absurd nonsense of American "scholars" such as William Vogt about the lack of living land 
DB  - EGIDC
UR  - https://data.dcxjegi.cn/portal/metadata/b4ca9be0-a805-4d62-9c28-4ce17291fe37
ER  -