Assessing The Outcomes Of Iwmis Research And Interventions On Irrigation Management Transfer

The purpose of this paper is to summarize IIMI/IWMI’s past research and interventions related to irrigation management transfer and to document, to the extent possible, the academic, policy, and technical outcomes of these efforts. The application of a range of direct and indirect measurement techniques suggests an overall positive contribution from IWMI to IMT theory and application.

Evaluates data from 29 different studies on irrigation management transfer to assess the impacts of transfer on various aspects of irrigation system management. Twelve guiding principles to ensure a more systematic approach to research on the impacts of management transfer are proposed. Identifies key research propositions on the conditions necessary for transfer programs to succeed.

Research results: performances assessment; Research results: design and operation of irrigation systems; Research results: policy, institutions, and management; Research results: health and environment; Training and institutional strengthening; Conclusions: outputs, impacts, and future directions.

Tests the hypothesis that, in general, irrigation management transfer has positive impacts on operation performance, managerial accountability, O&M budgeting and expenditures, costs of water to farmers, and agricultural and economic productivity in the Alto Rio Lerma Irrigation District in Mexico. Evaluates the potential of the Mexican IMT process as a model for other countries.

Irrigation management transfer (IMT) means the relocation of responsibility and authority for irrigation management from government agencies to non-governmental organizations, such as water user's associations. It is a widespread process that is taking place in more than 40 countries. These guidelines have been written to assist policy-makers, planners, technical experts, farmers' representatives and others involved in IMT programmes to design and implement an effective comprehensive and sustainable reform.

The present water report is the final product emanating from efforts by FAO, IWMI and others to document and understand the implications of the irrigation sector embarking on a wide reform process. It is intended to be a knowledge synthesis document that captures the global experiences emerging from a wide-reaching process targeting the reform of the irrigation sector. This study indicates that irrigation management transfer (IMT) is an approach for irrigation sector reform with the potential to improve the sustainability of irrigation systems. The process requires inter alia strong political commitment, negotiations among stakeholders, and long-term capacity development. Irrigation management transfer should not be seen as a process that has a clear "beginning" and "end". While the former can be more easily identified, the latter is much more difficult to determine. In fact, IMT can be the initial stage of an evolving long reform process. The accompanying CD-ROM contains IMT country profiles and case studies, an international IMT e-mail conference, a bibliography and links.--Publisher's description.

It has become a national policy in manu countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. These were only some of the many issues which were discussed in sessions and papers at the Conference. Participants wer alsl able to examine the compelling and distinctive approach of the Chinese for de-collectivization of irrigated agriculture with its relatively elaborate arrangements for incentives and accountability between village irrigation groups and financially autonomous irrigation districts. Since over 110 papers were submitted for the Conference, a selection of papers had to be made. This publication is recommended for policy makers, planners, project management professionals, consultants, trainers, farmer-sponsored irrigation managers and researchers who have an interest in irrigation reform in developing countries. It is believed that these selected papers add significantly to the range of ideas and information about the approaches and results of irrigation management transfer around the world.

In 1947, British India-the part of South Asia that is today's India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh-emerged from the colonial era with the world's largest centrally managed canal irrigation infrastructure. However, as vividly illustrated by Tushaar Shah, the orderly irrigation economy that saved millions of rural poor from droughts and famines is now a vast atomistic system of widely dispersed tube-wells that are drawing groundwater without permits or hindrances. Taming the Anarchy is about the development of this chaos and the prospects to bring it under control. It is about both the massive benefit that the irrigation economy has created and the ill-fare it threatens through depleted aquifers and pollution. Tushaar Shah brings exceptional insight into a socio-ecological phenomenon that has befuddled scientists and policymakers alike. In systematic fashion, he investigates the forces behind the transformation of South Asian irrigation and considers its social, economic, and ecological impacts. He considers what is unique to South Asia and what is in common with other developing regions. He argues that, without effective governance, the resulting groundwater stress threatens the sustenance of the agrarian system and therefore the well being of the nearly one and a half billion people who live in South Asia. Yet, finding solutions is a formidable challenge. The way forward in the short run, Shah suggests, lies in indirect, adaptive strategies that change the conduct of water users. From antiquity until the 1960‘s, agricultural water management in South Asia was predominantly the affair of village communities and/or the state. Today, the region depends on irrigation from some 25 million individually owned groundwater wells. Tushaar Shah provides a fascinating economic, political, and cultural history of the development and use of technology that is also a history of a society in transition. His book provides powerful ideas and lessons for researchers, historians, and policy

Across the United States, the practices for collecting water use data vary significantly from state to state and vary also from one water use category to another, in response to the laws regulating water use and interest in water use data as an input for water management. However, many rich bodies of water use data exist at the state level, and an outstanding opportunity exists for assembling and statistically analyzing these data at the national level. This would lead to better techniques for water use estimation and to a greater capacity to link water use with its impact on water resources. This report is a product of the Committee on Water Resources Research, which provides consensus advice to the Water Resources Division (WRD) of the USGS on scientific, research, and programmatic issues. The committee works under the auspices of the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Research Council (NRC). The committee considers a variety of topics that are important scientifically and programmatically to the USGS and the nation and issues reports when appropriate. This report concerns the National Water-Use Information Program (NWUIP).