The deterioration of basin and sediment overlapping in the infrastructure of the irrigation districts in Mexico

Abstract

The surface dedicated to agriculture in Mexico is of approximately 21 million hectares, of which 6.4 million count as irrigation infrastructure, and 3.5 million (54%) correspond to 86 great areas called Irrigation Districts. The irrigated farming generates more than half of the national agricultural production. One of the main problems of the infrastructure maintenance is the accumulation of sediments in the distribution and drainage networks, caused fundamentally by insufficient actions of soils and water conservation in the basins of the irrigation dams. The present work analyzes the impact of the catchment basins degradation in the accumulation of sediments in the Irrigation Districts.