Geography

Myanmar is geographically located between 9^o 32^o and 23^o 31^o North Latitude and 92^o 10^o and 101^o 10^o East Longitude. Its land area is 676578 Sq.Km and two thirds of the country is within tropics. It is characterized by mountain range in the North, East and West and a long coastal strip in the South. Lengthwise, it stretches about 2060 Km North to South and approximately 945 Km East to West. Myanmar is one of the South East Asian Country and lies in the Western most part of the Indo-China peninsula. It has common international borders with China in the North, Thailand and Laos PDR in the East, India and Bangladesh in the West and again with Thailand in the South.

Population and land use

The total population of Myanmar was 53.86 million in mid-2019 as per the Population Reference Bureau (2019), forming (0.70%) of the total population of the world. Myanmar ranks 26^th among the most populous countries in the world. The density of the population is 79 inhabitants per Sq.Km. The government of Myanmar recognizes 135 distinct ethnic groups. These are grouped under eight major national ethnic races viz., Bamar, Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan.

The total area of Myanmar is 67.66 Mha and one fourth of the total area is land that can be utilized for cultivation. The net sown area is 12.01 Mha while fallow land, cultivable wasteland, and reserved forests are 0.491, 5.76 and 19.12 Mha respectively. Other forest area and other land area are 14.37 and 15.91  Mha  respectively. Presently, the area about 4.2 Mha, (34)% of the total net sown area, is currently cultivated by smallholder farmers with an average land holding of 1.92 hectares. The fallow land is about 0.49  Mha and wasteland 5.76 Mha that can be cultivated is about 6.25 Mha. This can be utilized for expansion of agricultural land.

Climate and rainfall

Myanmar has three distinct spells as the dry, wet and cold seasons. In general, summer emerges from March to May, the rainy season emerges from May to October and the cold season from November to the end of February. The south-west monsoon usher in the rains, giving rise to precipitations of 2030 mm to 3050 mm in the deltaic area, 2030 mm to 3810 mm the north, about 1520 mm in the Shan State; rising to 5080 mm in the Rakhine State and Tanintharyi Region, and dipping to less than 760 mm in the Central Dry Zone (CDZ). And incidentally such localities experience temperature of 40'C to 43'C during summer, while dropping to 10'C to 16'C during winter.

Food and agriculture

Myanmar is an agricultural country and agricultural sector is the back bone of its economy. Agricultural sector includes Crops, Livestock and Fishery sub-sectors which contribute 25.6% of GDP, 24.4% of total export earnings in 2017 - 2018, and employ 61.2% of the labour force.

The government has laid down the twelve economic policies of which two are related to agriculture: “Establishing an economic model that balances agriculture and industry, and supports the holistic development of the agriculture, livestock and industrial sectors, so as to enable rounded development, food security and increased exports” and “Achieving financial stability through a finance system that can support the sustainable long-term development of households, farmers and businesses”.

Myanmar’s farming systems are increasingly diversified. Most farms produce paddy rice during the monsoon season, mainly due to high humidity, which is better suited to wet rice production than cultivation of Myanmar’s other main cash crops. These are usually produced during the cool and dry seasons, and include, mainly beans and pulses, oil seeds, and maize.

Rice is the most important agricultural commodity of Myanmar and produced over (28.09) million tons in 2017 - 2018. Monsoon paddy is the main crop for both small and large farms in Myanmar.

According to the National Planning Targets, the total area of paddy was 7.42 Mha, comprising 6.27 Mha under monsoon paddy and 1.15 Mha under summer paddy, with average yield 4.06 Mha in 2017 - 2018. Actual paddy sown area in 2017 - 2018 was 7.26 Mha and production reached (28.09) million metric tons.

Measures have been taken to increase the paddy production by using high yielding varieties including introduction of hybrid rice varieties, adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), utilization of good quality high yielding seeds, application of agricultural inputs such as irrigation water, agro-chemicals and natural fertilizers and promotion of farm machinery utilization as technological interventions.

Irrigation and drainage

Food production and rural community is the largest water user, using as much as 70% of total fresh water supply, and most of the water is used for irrigation. With 40% of food grown from irrigated lands, irrigation is of paramount importance to food security, social and economic development and social ability. The irrigation and drainage facilities meet the rising demand for food and water and flood protection using all feasible approaches, drawing upon available local resources and expertise to achieve its agricultural objective. Up to the 2018 - 2019, 786 irrigation facilities have been implemented across the regions and states of the country, further increasing the total irrigable land areas of 1.14 Mha. They, also undertake flood protection works for farmlands and residential areas about 1.5 Mha by Construction, Rehabilitation, Operation and Maintenance of Embankments, Polders, Drainage Channels and Sluicegates along main river system and delta area.

Irrigation infrastructures such as Dams, Weirs and Sluicegates are being implemented formally, where possible. However, in low rainfall areas on more-or-less flat plain regions, where building of hydraulic structures are difficult, and where availability of water from river and creek sources is the only option, pump stations are being installed, and where groundwater is available, tubewells are being drilled for irrigation. In doing so, 208 of pump irrigation schemes have supplemented the irrigated area by 0.11 Mha while completed groundwater facilities of 5320 shallow tube wells and 18797 deep tube wells covering the beneficial area of 0.13 Mha.

In Myanmar, the river basin characteristics are quite variable due to the differences in physiographic features. The principal water courses flowing separately in Myanmar comprise four major rivers, the Ayeyarwady, Chindwin, Sittaung, Thanlwin, Bago and other major tributaries including rivers from Rakhine State and Tanintharyi Region. All rivers with the exception of the Thanlwin river of trans-boundary nature can be considered national water assets. Their drainage area spreads rather extensively over the country, with some 1,082,000 million cubic meters of water volume per annum from a drainage area of about 738,230 Km².

The monthly distribution of river flow varies according to the pattern of rainfall, i.e, about 80% during the rainy season (May - October) and 20% in the dry season (November - April). The estimated groundwater potential is about 495 Km³ in eight principal basins in country. On the basis of stratigraphy, there are eleven different types of aquifers in Myanmar. Depending on their lithology and depositional environmental, groundwater from those aquifers have disparities in quality and quantity. Out of these, groundwater from Alluvial and Irawaddian aquifers are more potable for both irrigation and domestic water use. However, on the water scarcity regions, groundwater from Peguan, Eocene, and Plateau Limestone aquifers are extracted for domestic use.

Water policies

The National Water Policy (NWP) of Myanmar is the first integrated water policy for the watersheds, rivers, lakes and reservoirs, groundwater aquifers, and coastal and marine waters, approved in March 2014. In Myanmar, no single institution is responsible for the management of water resources.

ICID and National Committee

Myanmar joined the ICID in 1962 and formed the National Committee-MNCID. The Irrigation and Water Utilization Management Department (IWUMD) under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI) takes responsibility for provision of irrigation and drainage works in Myanmar. Representative young professionals from Myanmar attended a five-day Young Professionals (YP) training programme to hone the skills of the budding young professionals on the theme “Performance Assessment of Irrigation Systems” from 9-13 April 2018 at China Hall of Science and Technology in Beijing, China. Dr. (Ms.) Mu Mu Than represents MNCID and can be contacted at