2.2.4. Irrigation Demands

In order to estimate the irrigation demands for each land cover case study in LC1960, LC1990 and LC2018, due to a lack of detailed information concerning the crops cultivated for each reference year, the irrigation demands for the year 2010 were used. More specifically, during a previous study [35], the irrigation demands for Spercheios river basin per local community were calculated taking into consideration the detailed agricultural activities and the cultivated crops per local community from the Census of Agricultural and Livestock Holdings 2010 [54] and the methodology proposed by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for the estimation of the net irrigation requirement of each crop in the study area [55]. The irrigation demands were then projected for the years 1960 (LC1960), 1990 (LC1990) and 2018 (LC2018) per local community, based on the ratio of the corresponding irrigation area as documented during the corresponding census or annual agricultural statistical surveys [53,56,57] and the irrigation area of 2010 (for Pthiotida prefecture; Table 4).

**Table 4.** Estimation of irrigation demands for Spercheios river basin.


1Year when Census of Agricultural and Livestock Holdings was conducted; 2 Pthiotida prefecture.
