The quality of service provided by the irrigation department to the users associations, Tunuyan System, Mendoza, Argentina

The quality of service provided by the provincial Irrigation Department (DGI) to the Water Users Associations (UA), and subsequently by the UA's to the related water users, is based on the provincial water law. The intended volume of water being delivered per considered period further depends on the water availability and on the (crop irrigation) water requirements. The Service Level (SL) compares the intended water supply with the water supply that would be required to supply the entire irrigable area with sufficient water. As soon as the intended water delivery pattern is set, the measured actual delivery can be assessed against the intention. Several performance indicators are used in this context. Based on the assessment of the Water Delivery Performance Ratio and the Overall Consumed Ratio recommendations are made on changes which can be made to improve water use and reduce problems of waterlogging.     

Development and Application of Simplified Asset Management Procedures for Transferred Irrigation Systems

This paper describes the practice of assetmanagement and its application toirrigation system maintenance. It thenpresents the application of a simplifiedasset management procedure for transferredirrigation systems in Albania. In thisapplication, the procedure was introducedto assess, monitor, and regulate, overtime, the condition of government-ownedirrigation infrastructure; management,operation and maintenance of which has beentransferred to Water Users Associations andFederations of Water Users Associations. The paper describes the procedures used tocarry out asset surveys, and to process anduse the data collected. The procedureshave been found to be relevant andapplicable to the conditions experienced inAlbania and a valuable mechanism forfocussing the attention of Water UserAssociations and Federations of Water UsersAssociations on sustaining and enhancingthe condition of the irrigationinfrastructure.     

皂河灌区农民用水者协会水价探讨

如何实现灌区的经济自立，水价改革首当其冲，皂灌灌区用自己的探索，走出了一条切实可行的水价核定、征收、使用和管理的新路子。皂河灌用用水者协会参与灌溉管理后用水协会会员水价由水利工程水价、供水公司供水水价和用水者协会供水价构成，并建立健全了收费组织，完善收费计量方式，合理分配使用消费，减少水价管理中的危害性、随意性和不合理现象，以促进灌区的经济自立和可持续发展。     

Strategy for Efficient Energy Management to solve energy problems in modernized irrigation: analysis of the Spanish case

While the modernization of irrigation techniques in recent years has improved water use efficiency, the substitution of open channels by pressurized pipes led to a substantial increase in the energy used in irrigated agriculture. Given the concern for energy savings and sustainability, official administrations have promoted several initiatives to improve energy efficiency in irrigated agriculture, and researchers have developed different tools for the same. Although energy audits have been conducted in irrigation networks managed by Water Users’ Associations, the implementation of energy conservation measures proposed in these audits has not been always successful. This paper, which reviews the energy aspects of irrigation systems modernized in recent decades in Spain and in other countries, considers the characteristics and special features of Water Users’ Associations and proposes an energy management system (EMS) for the same. The stages of the EMS are described, beginning with the definition of energy policy and the establishment, implementation and verification of energy plans, the essential conditions to guarantee the success of the EMS are described, in which energy audits are just a part of a process of continual improvement of energy efficiency. A Strategy for Efficient Energy Management has been implemented in a Water Users’ Association in southeast Spain. The improvement measures proposed in the first energy plan were implemented, and an increase from 60 to 65 % in average energy efficiency was achieved.     

Turnover and irrigation service fees

This paper reviews the implications of the new economic policies of turning over public irrigation systems to local water users and irrigation service fees that are in the process of being implemented by the Indonesian Government. These policies are designed to ensure that irrigation is economically sustainable over the next decades. The turnover program has already made considerable progress and, once government policies are clarified, has the potential to major impact on irrigation in the more mountainous provinces. It is expected by the year 2002 that 108 billion Rupiah will be raised from service fees. However, with respect to the collection of such fees, there is still bureaucratic uncertainty and local resistance that must be overcome before the policy can be successfully implemented throughout the country.     

Irrigation reform in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan

This paper is to challenge the widespread perception of irrigation management as a purely technical system based on rational decision-making and implementation. It builds on a case study of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, two transitional developing countries in Central Asia. Both countries are characterized by a highly unsustainable water use. An institutional reform of irrigation management is conducted to make it sustainable (through efficiency), market-oriented (through cost-recovery, less state interference), and democratic (through decentralization, user participation). Main tools are the establishment of Water User Associations (WUAs) and the introduction of irrigation service fees (ISF). However, the mainly donor-driven reforms did not meet their objectives so far. The research is based on expert interviews and a case study of one WUA in each country. The study builds on a neo-institutionalist approach by analyzing the role institutions (defined as formal as well as informal rules) play in shaping actors perceptions, choices and strategies. The paper argues that obstacles to reform are rooted in two main aspects: (1) The institutional environment in agriculture and in local governance does not provide the necessary incentives and conditions for the reform to become effective. Hence newly established formal rules are not perceived as legitimate and are undermined by informal ones. (2) WUAs as new organizations are – in a process of “institutional bricolage” – incorporated in existing societal and political institutions.     

Didactic tools for supporting participatory water management in collective irrigation schemes

In many irrigation schemes, Water Users Associations (WUAs) acquired the responsibility for water management after withdrawal of the state. Based on the success of some indigenous irrigation schemes, it was assumed that farmers could easily become managers. As decision-making was the exclusive terrain of the governmental agencies that ran the schemes, farmers never gained the necessary experience with water management. Therefore, training of farmers and WUAs on the principles and processes of water management is essential. This paper demonstrates a practical example of training material on water management that incorporates research results on the process of Irrigation Management Transfer and resulting farmers’ water management for the case of the Office du Niger irrigation scheme. The results of the paper explain how input from research was used in the four steps of the construction of training material. These steps are (1) setting the training agenda, (2) selecting and adapting information to be featured, (3) targeting the audience and (4) designing the actual training material. A first validation of the approach and examples of the actual training material were obtained in a workshop uniting all stakeholders.     

农业水价综合改革背景下平原灌区农业用水激励机制研究

从农业用水户的角度，结合南方平原灌区实际，提出3种递进式的农业用水激励模式及相应测算公式，即“先交水费、后全额补贴”模式，基于合理用水定额的“先交水费、后差额补贴”模式，以及基于区域单位用水量的“先交水费、后差额补贴”模式，并测算分析了典型试点区内用水户的用水量、预交水费、奖惩金额、精准补贴额和实交水费等。结果表明，3种农业用水激励模式各有优缺点，可适用于改革进程的不同阶段。基于区域单位用水量的“先交水费、后差额补贴”模式充分体现了节奖超罚的原则，并最终达到区域内奖惩金额的动态平衡，促使用水户间相互督促、互相竞争，有利于充分调动用水户的节水积极性，提升用水户节水意识，具有推广应用价值。      

参与式灌溉管理的现状及发展趋势

参与式灌溉管理是目前国际上灌溉管理改革的重要模式之一.参与式灌溉管理就是在政府的宏观调控扶持下,让灌区广大用水户参与到灌区的建设和管理的事务中来,按市场经济规律,并充分考虑灌区的特殊要求,经营管理灌区,使灌区良性运行.用水户参与管理的前提是组建用水户协会,用水户协会具有法人地位.其实质就是民主管理、广泛监督.介绍了参与式灌溉管理产生的背景、国内外的发展状况,分析了参与式灌溉管理的内涵、管理模式及成效,说明了用水户协会的特点、存在的问题及对策,并对其发展趋势作了展望.     

Assessing irrigation performance in the Gediz River Basin of Turkey: water user associations versus cooperatives

The aim of this study is to compare the performance between Water User Associations (WUAs) and cooperatives in the Gediz River Basin in Turkey by applying a set of external comparative performance indicators. The indicators allow for the comparison of irrigation performance between the two organisations. Benchmarking indicators were used to best evaluate the differences, achievements and failures. The indicators included fee collection rate, cost recovery, general meeting attendance, irrigation and personnel intensity. The data was collected over a 7-year period from 1997 to 2003, inclusive. The article clearly shows that, with respect to the selected indicators, both WUAs and cooperatives performed well. Personnel intensity is the one area that both organisations could improve upon. Overall, WUAs function better than cooperatives. The findings and conclusions drawn from this research will be beneficial to managers responsible for policy-making decisions for the future attempts on irrigation management.     

Empirical assessment of water management institutions in northern China

We examine the development of irrigation management in northern China using data from village and household panels. During the past decade, reform-oriented institutions, such as water user associations and contracting, have largely replaced the traditional institution of collective management in village-level irrigation systems. A feature unique to China is that water user associations and contractors are provided with monetary incentives to save water. Water user associations have not yet achieved the broad-based participation of farmers that some advocates consider as a primary goal for forming the associations. Many village leaders serve also as the leaders of water user associations, thus possibly reducing opportunities for receiving operational input and policy direction from farmers. However, we observe improved performance of irrigation systems managed by water user associations, relative to collective management, in terms of maintenance expenditures, the timeliness of water deliveries, and the rates of fee collection. Performance has improved also in systems managed by contractors, although not as substantially as in the case of water user associations.     

基于AtveX数据对象的灌区用水

水费计收信息化管理是灌区信息化建设的一个重要内容，同时灌区数据库建设在灌区信息化建设过程中处于核心地位。介绍了“灌区用水申报软件”的主要功能、开发环境以及技术要点和难点。该软件用于辅助管理单位进行水量申报的管理工作，能够访问Access数据库，读取相应数据，计算各个时刻的需水量，并确定应缴纳的水费。设计目的是方便、迅速地为灌溉决策部门提供原始数据和计算数据，并能对数据提供格式输出。     

A Farmer-Centered Analysis of Irrigation Management Transfer in Mexico

With the rewritten Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution and the National Water Law of 1992, Mexico embarked on an ambitious program of transferring the management of many irrigation systems to local user groups, primarily farmers. By 1996, 372 water user associations had been formed to control water delivery to 2.92 million hectares. During this time water prices increased by 45–180% and government O&M subsidies were eliminated. Limited economic analysis of stakeholder impact has been conducted of the irrigation management transfer (IMT) program. This research effort pilots a partial budget analytical framework for analyzing the social benefits and costs of IMT. Two irrigation modules near Culiacan, Sinaloa were selected as case studies. Results reveal that even with significantly higher water prices, water users have invested more in their systems than during the post-IMT period and consider their overall irrigation costs to be lower. Lower transaction costs in the pre-IMT period explain the majority of these cost savings. Efforts to quantify incremental benefits and costs associated with IMT at the module and district levels proved difficult given the unavailability of reliable, time series information.     

Management evaluation of Water Users Associations using benchmarking techniques

The development of different tools to evaluate the performance of Water Users Associations (WUAs) is an important practice for improving water and energy management, together with other production costs. One of these tools is the Benchmarking technique, which is based on the comparison between different WUAs to determine the best practices in each of them.In this paper, a Benchmarking process is applied to seven WUAs located in Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) during three irrigation seasons (2006-2008). The performance indicators developed by the International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) are used, while new indicators dealing with production and energy are proposed. The goals of this paper are to group WUAs with the same characteristics, using performance and energy indicators, and to reduce the set of indicators using statistical methods. The most important indicators, easy to obtain and yielding result in maximum information are retained for further use.Three proposals reducing the initial number of indicators were proposed, with an aim of being useful for future applications based on characterizing WUAs. Indicators results highlighted that irrigable areas can be grouped based on the application of drip irrigation systems and those with sprinkler irrigation systems. When using groundwater resources, no significant differences were observed for energy consumption between these irrigation systems. This can be explained by the indicator energy load index (ICE, m), which had similar values in all WUAs analyzed. According to annual irrigation water supply per unit irrigated area (V_TSr, m³ ha⁻¹), the highest values (between 5200 m³ ha⁻¹ and 6800 m³ ha⁻¹) were obtained in WUAs with sprinkler irrigation systems, which contained crops characterized by high water requirements, compared to the V_TSr (less than 1800 m³ ha⁻¹) of WUAs with drip irrigation systems, with crops that required less volume of irrigation water. Regarding production efficiency indicators, in drip irrigation systems the high presence of vineyards, almond and olive trees, crops with low water requirements, explained high values of gross margin per unit irrigation delivery (MBVs, € m⁻³)(close to 0.82 € m⁻³) in comparison with sprinkler irrigation systems (close to 0.36 € m⁻³).     

Low Cost Satellite Data for Monthly Irrigation Performance Monitoring: Benchmarks from Nilo Coelho, Brazil

Irrigation performance indicators can helpwater managers to understand how anirrigation scheme operates under actualcircumstances. The new contribution ofremote sensing data, is the opportunity tostudy the crop growing conditions at scalesranging from individual fields to schemelevel. Public domain internet satellitedata have been used to calculate actual andpotential crop evapotranspiration, soilmoisture and biomass growth on a monthlybasis in the Nilo Coelho irrigation scheme,Pernambuco (Brazil). Satellite interpretedraster maps were merged with vector maps ofthe irrigation water delivery system.Monthly values of a minimum list ofirrigation performance indicators for thevarious service units in the pressurizedNilo Coelho scheme were determined. NiloCoelho is a good performing scheme. Theperformance can be improved further if 25%irrigation water is saved from February toJuly. The benchmark figures from thismodern irrigation system are presented forcomparitive analysis with other systems.The acceptable ranges in space and timeare presented. On average, 65% of thelateral pumping units on a monthly basisfall within the acceptable limits ofirrigation performance. Low cost irrigationperformance data based on low resolutionsatellite images (US$ 1/ha) will help themanagement team to focus on specificpumping units, and discuss alternativeirrigation and farm management strategieswith the stakeholders.     

干旱地区发展节水灌溉的有效实践--黑龙江省依安县发展节水灌溉的调查报告

黑龙江省依安县属东北西部干旱地区，十年九早，特别是春旱严重，制约着农业的发展。在水利部的支持下，推广应用节水灌溉技术促进了农业发展，使农民增产增收，受到农民的欢迎。介绍了他们推广节水灌溉技术的做法和经验。从加强领导，全面规划开始，采取从点到面逐步推广并规范服务，精细指导，强化管理的方法，实现水利与农艺有机结合，最终达到增产增收的效果。     

Innovations in irrigation management and development in Hunan province

Mass movement labor was an important contributor to irrigation system construction in China during the seventies, making up a third or more of system costs. Total per-ha system costs are roughly consistent with those in other Asian countries when contributed labor is valued at estimated farm wage rates, but less than average if zero labor opportunity cost is assumed.Innovative practices are being employed in managing and supporting irrigation system operations in Western Hunan Province. Many are ones which have been advocated repeatedly elsewhere but infrequently applied. These include the volumetric wholesaling of water to distribution organizations, farmer water charges with both fixed and volumetric components, financially autonomous irrigation management agencies, and delegation of water distribution and fee-collection responsibility to village-based organizations. Heavy emphasis currently rests on financial self-reliance of schemes as denoted by the slogan, let water support water. This has led to a proliferation of secondary income-generating enterprises associated with irrigation system management, as well as strenuous efforts to collect irrigation fees. Often the secondary enterprises generate a larger share of total income than does the irrigation service itself.Fee levels for rice generally fall into the $12 to $20 ha/yr range, intermediate to those prevailing in Pakistan at $8.50/ha for two crops of rice and the Philippines at $45/ha for double cropped rice. Collection of fees is typically handled by the village. Charges are usually levied on an area basis but one large system employed a more complicated system which had both fixed and variable components. Water allocation at lower system levels is also delegated to the village in many cases, with the state serving as a wholesale provider of water.Abbreviations and units ha-m hectare-meter - jin unit of weight equal to 0.5 kg - kw kilowatt - mu unit of land area equal to 1/15 ha - Rmb Renmimbi (Yuan) equal to US$ 0.27 officially in September 1988 and about half of that unofficially - RMD Reservoir Management Division - WCB Water Conservancy Bureau - WMD Water Management Department     

干旱地区发展节水灌溉的有效实践——黑龙江省依安县发展节水灌溉的调查报告

黑龙江省依安县属东北西部干旱地区,十年九旱,特别是春旱严重,制约着农业的发展,在水利部的支持下,推广应用节水灌溉技术促进了农业发展,使农民增产增收,受到农民的欢迎.介绍了他们推广节水灌溉技术的做法和经验.从加强领导,全面规划开始,采取从点到面逐步推广并规范服务,精细指导,强化管理的方法,实现水利与农艺有机结合,最终达到增产增收的效果.     

Agricultural and environmental changes after irrigation management transfer in the Develi Basin,Turkey

Develi Basin is a semi-arid basin in central Turkey where water sustains both irrigated agriculture and an internationally important wetland, the Sultan Marshes. Agricultural and environmental changes in the Develi Basin have occurred since irrigation management was transferred in 1994 from a state authority (DSI) to irrigation associations (Kovalı and Ağcaaşar IAs). In this paper we evaluate the practices of the IAs using extensive data from interviews with farmers and IA officials, as well as data from reports prepared by DSI and the IAs, using comparisons with case studies reported in the scientific literature. Irrigated areas and surface water use in the Develi Basin showed significant fluctuations from 1995 to 2003. The area allocated to high water-consuming plants increased. Maintenance activities became dependent on fee collection rates. Quality of the irrigation water did not changed significantly. Ground-water levels, flow rates from springs, and water levels in the Sultan Marshes all dropped. Overall analyses indicate that the water requirements of the Sultan Marshes have not been met, while water use for irrigation has been effective but not efficient. To reconcile agricultural and wetland water requirements, a basin-wide approach in water planning is recommended. Amounts of water to be allocated to the IAs and wetlands need to be clearly defined. DSI has to monitor canal maintenance by the IAs more closely, and IAs need to be given more responsibilities for future rehabilitation of the canals. Realistic water pricing, increased reliability of irrigation scheduling, higher on-farm irrigation efficiency, and in the long-term, modernization of the irrigation system need to be considered.