Water user associations in Inner Mongolia: Factors that influence farmers to join |
| |
Authors: | Guanghua Qiao Lijuan Zhao |
| |
Institution: | a Institute of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China b Department of Economics, University of Lethbridge, Room C594, University Hall, 4401 University Drive, Lethbridge , Alberta, Canada T1K 3M4 |
| |
Abstract: | Irrigation districts in Inner Mongolia face problems that are familiar to irrigation areas around the world: shortage of water resources, poor management of water, inefficient use of water resources, and imbalance of financial revenues and expenditures. Water user associations have been promoted to address water supply problems and to encourage efficient water use. In this study, farmers from three distinct areas in Inner Mongolia were surveyed to determine their level of understanding of water user associations and the factors that affect their becoming members. A majority of respondents thought that water user associations were useful to safeguard farmers’ interests, to help reduce labour inputs and disputes about water, to reduce irrigation costs, and to promote efficient water use. The factors found to be most important were: (1) being a village cadre; (2) good state of health; (3) high degree of understanding about water user associations; (4) small percentage of the household in the labour force; (5) cropping income a high percentage of family income; (6) having had previous conflicts involving water use issues. |
| |
Keywords: | Participatory water management Irrigation Farm survey Logistic China |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|