The World Bank has published Recovering Ukraine's Agricultural Wealth – Transitioning to Sustainable Irrigation. The report assesses where and how Ukraine can move from rainfed to irrigated agriculture within hydrological and environmental limits, using integrated agro-hydrological and economic modelling. It is the latest output of our multi-year collaboration with the World Bank on Ukraine's irrigation challenges. Silvan Ragettli served as lead hydrologist for the assessment.
Our earlier remote sensing analysis, published in Nature Food, showed that before the ongoing war only about 420'000 hectares (1.6% of Ukraine's cropland) were irrigated. The detailed agro-hydrological modelling in the new report shows that in drought years, 8.5 million hectares would require irrigation to avoid yield losses. In such dry years, irrigation demand also exceeds supply: even with optimal use of local surface water and groundwater, deficits of 1.8 to 2.7 million hectares would remain.
Building on these results, the World Bank team identified priority regions where demand, sustainable water availability and access conditions allow a transition from rainfed to irrigated agriculture. For these rayons, the team then assessed the economic and financial viability of irrigation expansion. The assessment forms part of the evidence base the World Bank is building to guide where and how Ukraine invests in irrigation recovery.
The central lesson of the report extends well beyond Ukraine. Irrigation planning must match irrigation demand, current water use and sustainably available water, under both present and future climate. The hot and dry summer of 2026 in Switzerland, with record-low groundwater levels in August, shows that this question is no longer confined to the world's drylands.
We thank our co-authors at the World Bank for their continued trust in our work.
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