Irrigation is in a quiet crisis. Despite undeniable past successes in contributing to food production, irrigation expansion has dramatically lost momentum since the 1980s due to a considerable slowdown in new investment, losses of irrigated areas due to water logging, salinization, aquifer over-drafting and urban encroachment in some countries. However, irrigated agriculture still remains essential for future food security. The reduction of investments in the irrigation sector is not consistent with the identified needs for future food security, as indicated by numerous model studies on projections of food demand and supply. The increasing disinterest of donor agencies and governments in irrigated agriculture may have dramatic consequences in the coming years if the situation is not reversed soon.
One of the factors that have contributed to this disinterest is the relatively poor performance of large-scale canal irrigation projects. These systems are the most difficult to manage and have yielded the lowest returns compared to their expected potential. The paper emphasizes that performance of irrigation projects is determined by a combination of physical, institutional and policy factors. It focuses however on the importance of design and technology that is often denied or not recognized by decision-makers and others involved in the development of large-scale irrigation.
This document is rather an advocacy, not a design manual, for irrigation projects. However, it presents some important suggestions for the revision of the planning process of irrigation projects and of operational procedures which have an impact on the selection and design of water control structures. The paper touches the issue of projects with conjunctive use of canal and groundwater; but does not address the design issues of projects making use of groundwater only. The technical discussion on the design is limited to the structures found in irrigation projects, which determine water operation and distribution. It therefore excludes drops, escapes and communication structures.
This publication is divided into three main parts. The first part reviews the various causes of performance of irrigation and drainage projects below their expected potential as suggested by many irrigation analysts over the last four decades. This part concludes that the gap between potential and actual outcome is strongly related to over-optimistic assumptions on hydraulic performance at planning stage and in a number of cases to faulty and unrealistic designs. High overall efficiency can only been reached in well-operated irrigation systems, which require well-designed and constructed systems.
The second part describes the conventional design concepts and operational procedures of irrigation projects used in the countries with large irrigated areas. It then discusses the operational problems of the design standards used in some countries or resulting from inadequate transfer of technology.
The third part reviews various factors that should be considered in the selection of an overall irrigation and water control strategy. The final chapter proposes a process whereby agencies responsible for irrigation would review existing design procedures and standards in view of existing and future requirements in terms of service and performance. Agencies would have to assess the needs for change and the development of new design standards and procedures. The chapter concludes with a strategy for the revision and dissemination of revised guidelines.
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This publication, its analyses and considerations, are global in scope, although naturally Asian irrigation, its history and characteristics as well as transfers of technology to and within the region are extensively covered. We believe that the publication and its recommendations are particularly relevant to Asia. For this reason, the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific has undertaken to commission and publish this work.
Present developments in the irrigation sector in Asia are dominated to a large extent by Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) and more recently Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) reforms, which often have the stated objectives of providing sustainable and adequate financing for operation and maintenance of irrigation and drainage services and of facilitating investment in the required rehabilitation or upgrading of irrigation systems. Overall reform of water resource management often encompasses these reforms; it typically includes demand management to encourage efficient water allocation and imposes new externalities on irrigation systems in terms of environmental, economic and financial performance. Water pricing is often a pivotal feature of these reforms, at the intersection of internal considerations of efficiency, fiscal or financial sustainability of the irrigation systems and external water allocation and environmental considerations.
Lending for irrigation has progressively changed over time from project-specific investments to sector loans or projects that are national or regional in scope and support the objectives of reform, participation and capacity building. These projects often combine low cost rehabilitation projects and management reforms with attention to improved O&M and user participation. In Asia, where the older public schemes have reached the age of 30-40 years in most countries, the issue of rehabilitation is becoming increasingly important. The content and orientation of rehabilitation in a context of PIM/IMT will therefore be critical.
The limited success of the previous wave of PIM reforms in Asia has led some analysts to the conclusion that these reforms had been incomplete and that it was necessary to deepen the institutional reforms to ensure that they were successful. It has also led to an interest in importing to Asia reform models from other regions, particularly Latin America, which are estimated to be more successful.
While the merit of these recommendations is not denied, there is a risk that seeking remedies only in the institutional sphere to the problems faced by past institutional reforms will lead to a continuation of the lack of attention to design and operation problems that plague many large-scale irrigation systems in the region. This failure to address a significant cause of the low performance of the systems has certainly contributed to frustrating the expectations raised by sectoral reforms. The particular features of the irrigation systems in the region are such that the introduction of new concepts of service and accountability actually represents a greater challenge than in other regions.
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The level of chaos (difference between stated policies and actual policies) and of anarchy (subversion of policies) in the formal irrigation systems of the region, which comprise the great majority of irrigated areas with the exception of certain countries (Afghanistan, Nepal, Lao PDR), is often rather high. While lack of discipline and institutional issues contribute greatly to this situation, many of the problems can be traced to: problems in initial design; export of design concepts outside of their area of validity; difficulty in controlling and operating the systems; layouts with confused hierarchies; serious flaws in operation strategies; inconsistencies between operating rules at various levels and between operating rules and farmers' requirements; changes in farmers' requirements not reflected by changes in system policies; poor quality of the water delivery service to farms; and lack of flexibility at all levels.
As a result, the actual water management of the systems is usually quite different from the stated or intended water management. It seems that, generally, establishing any type of improved management system will require substantial efforts to restore water control but also probably improve water measurement throughout the irrigation systems. One can also reasonably assert that a condition for a management system to work would be that stated operation policies and distribution rules become the same as or close to actual operation and distribution, and that these be consistent with farmers' requirements. IMT should provide the opportunity to achieve this. A review of past and present IMT or PIM programmes in the region suggests however that they usually fall short in two crucial areas: the decision-making process leading to the decision on system operation strategies and service and performance objectives, and a proper attention to design and other technical issues.
In theory, rehabilitation provides an opportunity to take into account the management patterns of operators and irrigators. In practice, however, rehabilitation simply re-establishes the physical configuration of the original system. Low cost rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure, in some cases an investment to catch up on years of differed maintenance, cannot correct deficiencies of the original design. The issue is whether basic flaws or constraints can be addressed with a light rehabilitation programme and whether not doing so hampers IMT/PIM or jeopardizes the success of reform in terms of sustainability of institutions and financial sustainability.
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The notions of water delivery service and of generalized service-orientation of institutions in the irrigation sector, whether river basin agencies, reformed irrigation agencies, irrigation service providers or water users' associations, have become central in new concepts and definitions of PIM and IMT. Literature on the evaluation of the impact of ongoing participatory irrigation management and irrigation management transfer programmes in terms of water service delivery, agricultural productivity and agricultural performance indicates however that, particularly in Asia, improved service is a problem area.
The general impression is that after turnover, services have substantially improved in regard to timeliness, reliability and equity. Increases in irrigated area and crop intensity are mentioned in many instances. Flexibility is not explicitly investigated but some results in terms of timeliness and adequacy are registered. Improvements in water use efficiency are more uncertain and their impact are typically not noticeable in terms of agricultural performance, change in irrigated area, crop patterns, cropping intensity or yields; PIM has neither improved nor interfered with agricultural productivity.
The future of farming is however seen to depend on crop diversification and a more commercial orientation. Diversification makes irrigation management more complex. The necessity of reengineering irrigation, i.e. of taking a fresh look at key processes and how they can best be carried out, and of considering both hardware and software elements is emphasized as irrigation becomes more commercial, but this is in apparent sharp contrast with actual design processes and their outcomes.
In Asia, the most common tool for planning rehabilitation or improvement works is the walk-through. PRA mapping and transects of land tenure, farming systems and ecosystems are also common. A diagnosis of operational procedures is usually not performed, physical works are rarely related to service or performance goals and expectations are low. The focus on upgrading is generally on reliability and equity, which are admittedly frequently the first issues to be addressed, but there is generally no vision of future requirements or discussion of flexibility.
PIM has generally led to modest efforts by farmers to improve management efficiency and responsiveness. Significant expenditures loom in the future unless the observed under-investment in operation and maintenance is halted. New programmes therefore emphasize gradual ongoing infrastructure improvements, with the objective to improve performance and ensure financial viability and physical sustainability of irrigation.
In summary, recent efforts in the region to improve the performance of irrigation systems have been dominated to a large extent by social and institutional aspects but results have been somewhat disappointing.
Other regions have often adopted a radically different approach. In contrast with this model, IMT in other regions has often taken a very different shape, with a deliberate effort to change the control logic of the systems from the top down and the transfer of large units of the systems to large water users' associations. To a large extent, engineering and institutional innovations have been introduced in an integrated and mutually reinforcing manner.
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Interactions between institutional, managerial and physical structures are increasingly debated. The prevailing view in recent years that, in irrigation management, there are no technical problems, only institutional and financial problems, is being challenged.
There is an emerging understanding that physical and institutional reforms of the irrigation sector should be combined, and that irrigation management transfer is not about transferring operation functions only but also governance to the irrigation users and a combination of the two at different levels. Rehabilitation is not enough in many cases and, whether institutions determine the technology or vice-versa, it is now acknowledged that technical aspects deserve more attention. For some, in order to improve irrigation performance, one must focus on management processes, irrespective of the institutional setup. Others, including this paper, argue that many problems are due to faulty design and operational procedures, which must be corrected. Physical features are also seen to possibly limit the scope of water sector reform and irrigation management transfer through lack of control and reliability to guarantee water allocations, poor performance or interfaces between levels that do not allow service agreements, volumetric charges or other water pricing systems to be established.
The recent debates at the International E-mail Conference on Irrigation Management Transfer organized by FAO and the International Network on Participatory Irrigation Management (July-October 2001) are an illustration of this new understanding. In their concluding statement, the conference organizers stated that "IMT does indeed create an important opportunity to adopt needed technical, managerial and financial modernization. Modernization - which is custom-designed to fit local needs and circumstances - must be an essential part of IMT programmes in many places if irrigation systems and irrigated agriculture are to be sustainable. Even though many modernization activities may happen after formal transfer, this should NOT be seen as an indication that somehow modernization is less important or is not an essential part of IMT."
It is estimated that the existing infrastructure may have an impact on the range of institutional options for reform: topics for research on IMT identified at the conference included the relation between infrastructure and institutional options, water scheduling and IMT and volumetric water delivery. It was also noted that "increasingly, the emphasis in the 'design' of irrigation organizations is turning towards the introduction, primarily through contracts, of professional management expertise in combination with new forms of accountability and transparency towards users, and, perhaps, more flexibility in delivery".
The performance or condition of many systems is a serious constraint to the desirability of transfer for users or sustainability if the level of agricultural performance cannot generate sufficient revenues for the users to pay their expected contributions to operation and maintenance of the schemes. The sustainability of the new water users' associations also depends on their capacity to provide an adequate water delivery service, control and allocate water, and provide an improved service to enable gains in agricultural productivity. This is essential for the farmers to pay for the water and for the associations to be financially viable.
Water rights and the necessity to satisfy different water uses with the same primary infrastructure will also become a major issue, together with obligations related to disposal and quality of effluents and other environmental requirements. Future requirements of water resource management, water scarcity, environment and agriculture will call for radical changes in management and technology as well as in the quality of water delivery service required by the users.
Rehabilitation, understood as reconstructing infrastructure as it was originally, is thus often not a desirable option. Improvements in infrastructure must be geared towards progressively and constantly adapting the systems to changes in demand. However, IMT programmes, in practice, are still often just a part of major rehabilitation projects and a focus on maintenance issues has probably led to neglecting issues related to the operation of irrigation systems. Participation of users in decisions about system operations and water scheduling should therefore be one of the main features of IMT. But this participation will be very limited in scope if there is only partial transfer or if IMT does not transfer governance over the entire system, as a single unit of management.
The objective of technology design should be to provide infrastructure that enables provision of an agreed level of service. This includes enabling implementation of particular distribution schedules as required by users for their agricultural operations. This general service orientation called for in the sector will often require a departure from established standard design procedures, a major retraining effort for engineers and managers as well as the provision of water users' associations with competent advisory and consulting services.
Some of the issues that need to be addressed in the sphere of design and planning of irrigation systems are: can one design systems taking into account human and institutional aspects and what would the repercussion be on the type of technology? How does one produce simple, transparent design and operational procedures? Does the knowledge exist on how to design and implement service-oriented water control and management? What are the tools and processes for decision-making in the level of service, in operational rules, in planning and design of rehabilitation works and how are the users involved? How is the decision on service related to financial decisions - service fees or farmers' contributions to operation, maintenance or physical works? How is it related to plans to upgrade management capacity?
Farmers' service requirements are often met from other sources than the intended delivery of the main surface systems. Farmers have responded to economic changes, poor or inadequate service or insufficient flows for intensive irrigation and tried to achieve flexibility, reliability and volumes required for the adoption of modern cultivation practices or for freedom in cropping strategies through illegal water trading, tampering with control structures, tapping additional resources, pumping from canals, drains, borrow pits etc. The explosion of groundwater irrigation is largely a response by farmers to the lack of flexibility and the unreliability of the canal systems. Managers also try to rectify management capacity and design shortcomings through recycling and conjunctive use.
This is inevitable. Farmers subvert water distribution rules which define patterns that do not match their feasible and desired goals. Making water delivery match goals is important. Responding to change requires adapting water distribution rules. Adoption of new on-farm technology requires improved operation of the main and conveyance systems. Inconsistent rules will also lead to inefficient and inequitable water distribution. The users, on the other hand, must accept the limitations on use imposed by water availability and the features of the system.
These considerations call for a greater attention to an analysis of operational rules at all levels in the system and particularly to their articulation at the interface between the future irrigation service providers and water users' associations, to the necessity of improving operations in the upper levels if the water users' associations are to be in a position to develop applicable rules and procedures, and to the necessity of incorporating at all levels the farmers' production objectives.
The question whether the technical/hydraulic dimension of irrigation can be brought under the control of agents focused on non-technical user-derived objectives is central as this would characterize a service-oriented management. The case for reassessing the design standards, configuration and operational procedures at the moment of transfer as a result of a review or resetting of both internal objectives in terms of service with the water users and external objectives with water resource institutions therefore seems to be compelling.
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Design processes have been a problem in the past. This paper shows that administrative and behavioural reasons such as lack of experience, accountability and feedback from operation of designers and lack of accountability of operators and managers to the users are partly to blame. IMT can correct the root cause of institutional, administrative and behavioural problems but institutional measures cannot correct existing infrastructure.
Modernization of an irrigation system is defined as the act of upgrading or improving the system capacity to enable it to respond appropriately to the water service demands of the current times, keeping in perspective future needs, or as a process of technical and managerial upgrading (as opposed to mere rehabilitation) of irrigation schemes with the objective to improve resource utilization (labour, water, economics, environment) and water delivery service to farms. This involves institutional, organizational and technological changes and implies changes at all operational levels of irrigation schemes from water supply and conveyance to the farm level. The objective is to improve irrigation services to farmers and improvement in canal operation will generally be a critical first step in the process. In the context of IMT, modernization is related to the process of transformation from supply-driven to service-oriented water delivery and to changes in governance of the systems for goal setting, which includes the decision on the service.
Modern design processes select the configuration and physical components in light of a well-defined, realistic operational plan based on the service concept and use of advanced hydraulic engineering, agronomy and social concepts to arrive at the most simple and workable solution. The most important issue is the system ability to achieve a specific level of operational performance at all levels within the system. A proper operational plan is the instrument that combines the various perspectives and reconciles expectations between users, project manager, field operators and the country policy objectives.
The second step is the decisions about water delivery, i.e. the flexibility (frequency, rate and duration) at all levels. Flexibility distinguishes and characterizes classes of service quality from rotation to on-demand and is most closely related to improvements in agricultural performance, crop diversification etc. Service agreements together with strategic management are increasingly adopted to encapsulate the iterative decision process on level of service and associated financial decisions, accountability, monitoring and evaluation as well as plans to upgrade management and infrastructure.
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This publication is intended to be of interest to all stakeholders of the irrigation sector: irrigation agencies, financing institutions, water users' associations, planners, designers, training and research institutions. It is hoped that it will stimulate and bring a useful contribution to the debate on irrigation sector reform and modernization and to the success of efforts to improve the performance of irrigation and to provide a better service to the farmers, by increasing the awareness of the critical importance of proper modernization procedures and design criteria.
Bangkok, August 2002
THIERRY FACON
Water Management Officer
FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
