TY - CHAP AU - Kaisi A. AU - Mohammad Y. AU - Mahrouseh Y. PY - 2007/// TI - Water resources in Syria and their development procedures T2 - Water saving in Mediterranean agriculture and future research needs [Vol. 3] PB - Bari : CIHEAM VL - 56 Vol.III T3 - Options Méditerranéennes : Série B. Etudes et Recherches SP - 209-224 A2 - Bogliotti C. A2 - Lamaddalena N. A2 - Scardigno A. A2 - Todorovic M. AB - Water resources (WRs) in Syria consist of surface and groundwater with total availability of 14218 m. m3. Since the agricultural sector is the largest consumer of WRs (nearly 90 percent) with an efficiency that doesn't exceed 50 percent. The traditional surface irrigation dominates on more than 80 percent of irrigated area. The government has purposely adopted a range of legal and institutional procedures conducive to WRs sustainable development and management improvement at farm level. These procedures include: ( i) Developing a water plan, including present and future uses until the year 2025; (ii) Establishing an overall research plan and adopting their results for developing a set of resolutions; (iii) Modernizing water legislation by developing the regulations necessary for water management improvement such as WUA establishment and promotion of participatory irrigation; (iv) Establishing an independent directorate that assumes the management of movement from traditional irrigation to modern irrigation project, with an independent support; and (iv) Implementing pilot projects for WRs participatory use and applicable modern irrigation techniques in collaboration with a number of international institutions and organizations. In general, the conducted studies shows the governmental options for improving on-farm WR management and WUE by adopting the research results for developing resolutions, supporting the process of transfer to modern irrigation technology and adopting the process of WRs improvement, development and protection. N1 - Proceedings of the International Conference WASAMED Project (EU contract ICA3-CT-2002-10013), 2007/02/14-17, Valenzano (Italy) UR - http://om.ciheam.org/om/pdf/b56_3/00800216.pdf ER -