Cost sharing and sustainability of Pongsak Muang Fai irrigation system

The centuries-old, self-organizing Muang Fai community irrigation institution in northern Thailand has high potential in illustrating exemplary practices in irrigation cost sharing. This paper examines the cost sharing structure of the Pongsak Muang Fai Irrigation System in Mae Hong Son Province and its relationship with the system water management and sustainability. Results show that this primitive and high cost system accepts costs of the weir, the entire length of main ditch, not only the individually related ditch sections, and the management as common costs that should be equally shared so that it can gather sizeable membership to support the system. The capacity of this small scale run-of-the-river irrigation system with no river flow limitation is a simple summation of all determined farm intake capacities. The maintenance cost of the system every year depends on how much water should be diverted and conveyed, hence the use of “relative” scale of each farm intake capacity as the basis for sharing cost in the wet season paddy farming. Such structure is directly related to the water management under which every intake shall be served with continuous supply without permitting mid-canal water check-up and the members prefer to take collective action to keep enough water supply without leaving any room for suspicion of unfair water distribution. The direct relationship makes the members understand the purpose of payment and be willing to share the costs which are transparently estimated in easily understood terms and clearly de-aggregated into categories.