Crops, People and Irrigation Water Allocation Practices of Farmers and Engineers

About this book

Most engineer-designed irrigation systems assume water will be distributed on the basis of delivery schedules that optimize physical relationships. These schedules often neglect the social parameters that govern irrigation management. This deficiency probably constrains yields on many of the gravity schemes that account for 90 per cent of all land irrigated in developing countries. The shortcoming is partly attributable to the widespread failure to study water distribution processes from an angle that is both technical and social. In the case studies presented in this collection, irrigation engineers describe water distribution practices as they actually occur in various schemes. Six of the schemes (in Mexico, Portugal, and Bolivia) are farmer-managed and one (in south India) is managed jointly by farmers and technical officers. The authors relate water flows to social processes and contrast conventional engineering wisdom with the practices they have observed.

Contents

Signposts of struggle - pipe outlets as the material interface between water users and the state in a large-scale irrigation system in South India, Peter P. Mollinga and Alex Bolding; intervention in irrigation water division in Bali, Indonesia - a case of farmers' circumvention of modern technology, Lucas Horst; the materialization of water rights - hydraulic property in the extension and rehabilitation of two irrigation systems in Bolivia; Gerben Gerbrandy and Paul Hoogendam; religion and local water rights versus land owners and state - irrigation in Izucar de Matamoros (West bank) Mexico, Marc Nederlof and Eric van Wayjen; rehabilitation of a farmer-managed system in Izucar de Matamoros (East bank) - two interpretations of technical concepts, Timen Eilander; from allocation to distribution - operational rules in a communal irrigation system in Northern Portugal, Paul Hoogendam, Adri van den Dries, Jose Portela, Moniek Stam and Julia Carvalho; effects of a technical intervention programme on water distribution and water use, Adri van den Dries, Paul Hoogendam and Jose Portela; designing for farmer management in the Senegal river valley, Ibrahima Dia, Geert Diemer, Wim F. van Driel and Frans P. Huibers.

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