ABSTRACT
An integral part of the Netherland-Israel Research & Development Programme project on the Jos Plateau, satellite imagery was ordered and processed at the Winand Staring Centre in Wageningen, The Netherlands. Apart from polluted effluents from factories and households in the Jos-Bukuru area the water quality is good for irrigation. No result are available yet of laboratory tests of suspected irrigation water near sources of pollution, but this is likely to restrict the use of suitable land in the central zone for dry-season market gardening. Three categories of irrigable land were distinguished: floodplain, upland and mineland ‘fadama’. The Korot area is chosen to illustrate how computer-processing of the data provided by the satellites helps to estimate the amount of irrigated farmland. The most important lesson is that satellite imagery is only suitable for rough estimates of the amount of land under irrigation.
