1.1 Modernization of irrigation systems: the previous consensus and agenda
In 1996, FAO organized a regional expert consultation in Bangkok on the Modernization of Irrigation Schemes: Past Experiences and Future Options. The rationale of this meeting was that as irrigated agriculture met about one third of the world's food demand and contributed to about 40 percent of Asia's food production, increasing competition with the urban and industrial and environmental sectors limited the quantities of water available for further irrigation expansion. Moreover, as the availability of land and water resources that could be developed economically was limited, the main option which remained was to increase land and water productivity. It was affirmed that: irrigation systems must be responsive to farmers' needs; supply and demand should match as closely as possible; losses of water should be minimized; and cropping patterns must respond to changes in the habits of societies.
The implication was that new objectives must be established for irrigation systems and this required changes in their physical and management systems. Modernization of irrigation systems could provide a part of the solution, but the traditional approaches to modernization and improvement of irrigation systems needed to change in the light of the new challenges facing the irrigation sector. A new definition of modernization of irrigation systems to guide future understanding and efforts was coined at the meeting:
"Irrigation modernization is a process of technical and managerial upgrading (as opposed to mere rehabilitation) of irrigation schemes combined with institutional reforms, if required, with the objective to improve resource utilization (labor, water, economic resources, environmental resources) and water delivery service to farms."
The meeting had concluded that there existed significant justifications for irrigation modernization in each country, although the specific reasons would vary by country and system. Broader criteria that could be used to assess the needs for modernization included water conservation, improving the reliability of water distribution, reduction of environmental degradation, support of crop diversification, reduction of operation and maintenance costs, and increasing farmer income. It was highly desirable to be able to predict and verify the benefits that would result from modernization actions, and more attention must be given to the development of evaluation procedures, monitoring of existing and new projects, and isolation of cause/effect relationships so that benefits can be more accurately estimated. There was a strong need for more and better adaptive and diagnostic research, especially coupled with effective information dissemination programmes. An essential ingredient of any modernization programme was an initial status and needs survey to establish baseline conditions. Appropriate selection or upgrading of equipment for improved water control was important for achieving a better water delivery service throughout an irrigation project, and technological improvements must always be accompanied by managerial and/or institutional changes.
Such software changes might be as simple as training in the proper maintenance and operation of the new structures, but more significant institutional changes would usually be required. The importance of a sense of ownership by all stakeholders was emphasized and although water user associations (WUAs) are indeed weak or non-existent in many projects at the moment, widespread success of many future modernization efforts will depend upon their existence and viability and vice versa.
1 Senior Water Management Officer, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 30 Phra Athit Road, Bangkok 10200, Thailand.
Essential institutional and policy changes identified at the meeting included:
The meeting identified a need for strong leadership, training at all levels and the development of upgraded design/procedure manuals as key actions to promote and support future modernization effort and called on international organizations and financing institutions to support these interventions.
1.2 FAO's response
FAO acted on the recommendations of the expert consultation and developed an irrigation modernization programme whose main component is a regional training programme. This programme aims at disseminating modern concepts of service-oriented management of irrigation systems in member countries with a view to promoting the adoption of effective irrigation modernization strategies in support of agricultural modernization and improving water productivity and integrated water resources management. FAO has developed training materials and detailed curricula (an update of the World Bank training manual on improving canal operations, a series of training materials for field training workshops based on Irrigation Training and Research Centre materials and other sources, a training module, with the University of Melbourne, on strategic planning and management of irrigation and drainage systems) as well as specific tools for the appraisal of irrigation systems for benchmarking and the development of appropriate modernization plans for irrigation systems (the rapid appraisal process (RAP)), and a Website for dissemination of information and experience (www.watercontrol.org). The first training workshop under the programme was organized in Thailand in 2000 and since that time China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkmenistan and Viet Nam have benefited from the support of the regional training programme to organize national training workshops on irrigation modernization and benchmarking. More than 600 engineers and managers have now been trained with support from the programme and the programme itself is supported by a series of technical and advocacy publications.
The programme is having an impact in member countries. The Royal Irrigation Department (RID) of Thailand is using the tools and methodologies introduced by the programme for the appraisal of projects and has included the training workshops in its regular training programme. Modernization concepts will support future irrigation sector reform and strategic planning for restructuring of RID through an ongoing technical assistance project. In Viet Nam, an ongoing World Bank-funded investment project has a large irrigation modernization component based on the concepts introduced through training at preparation stage, which was instrumental in the adoption of revised design criteria. Malaysia has included the training programme and its tools in its quality and modernization strategies: proposals for modernization of the rice granary systems in the country now have to be submitted to decision-makers based on modernization plans developed by system managers following their training and the appraisal of their systems with RAP introduced by FAO. Inputs have been made to the preparation of investment projects in Sindh. The programme is now expanding rapidly in several states of India as well as China and is also supporting the Mekong River Commission.
1.3 The need and opportunity to re-appraise perspectives, evolution scenarios and interventions in large rice-based irrigation systems in Southeast Asia
Almost ten years after the FAO regional expert consultation on the modernization of irrigation systems in 1996, a re-appraisal of the perspectives, evolution scenarios and proposed interventions in large rice-based irrigation systems in Southeast Asia was felt to be timely. Since 1996, the main trends and challenges faced by these systems had been confirmed and exacerbated by continued socio-economic growth and the transformation of the agrarian societies of the countries of Southeast Asia, and substantial poverty reduction challenges persisted. Although the region includes some of the most rapidly expanding economies of the world, agriculture continues to provide significant employment in the region. Transfers of water allocation away from agriculture and to urban areas and other sectors had taken place in many basins, agricultural production and policies had moved ever faster towards market-oriented farming systems under the growing influence of globalization and the liberalization of trade, which had become a major international agenda, and the importance of preserving and restoring the environment and aquatic ecosystems was increasingly recognized as an explicit goal of national governments. New challenges had emerged or were better understood, such as climate change associated with global warming.
The water management landscape and the institutional set up of the irrigation subsector had been deeply transformed by the recent wave of sectoral and institutional reforms, which presented further challenges as well as opportunities for improving the performance of irrigation systems. A number of the recommendations or prescriptions to improve the performance of irrigation systems, which were developed at the 1996 expert consultation and subsequent conferences, had been implemented through reform programmes or projects, and their impacts and outcomes had been evaluated. It was therefore possible to review these recommendations and build on lessons learned, and particularly to appraise whether disappointing outcomes resulted from a too narrow focus on the irrigation systems themselves, insufficient implementation of the actions proposed to the national governments and international community, erroneous or ill-adapted prescriptions, or other factors. The review would also enable successful developments and case studies to be built on. More generally, the review would allow the recommendations to be appraised from the perspective of new or evolving challenges.
At the international level, but also at the regional and national levels, the focus on integrated water resources management had fostered increasing and fruitful dialogues among the water, environmental and agricultural sectors, which provided a more comprehensive framework for discussions on the future of irrigation and for collaboration among agencies and professionals from various sectors and disciplines, and a better understanding of the multiple roles of rice-based irrigation systems and their place in and impact on river basins, rural livelihoods and ecosystems. At the First Southeast Asia Water Forum, convened by the Global Water Partnership Southeast Asia (Chiang Mai, 2003), the water and food session of the forum addressed the three challenges cited in the Kyoto Ministerial Recommendation of the Third World Water Forum on Water and Food, i.e. food security and poverty alleviation, sustainable water use, and knowledge and partnerships. One of the conclusions of the Forum, endorsed in the Forum's declaration, was that "Southeast Asian countries should collaborate to find ways to improve and transform large rice irrigation systems for participatory decentralized management, improvement of efficiency and service, multiple use, financial sustainability through payment of service and IWRM".
1.4 The regional workshop on the future of large rice-based irrigation systems in Southeast Asia
With this in mind, FAO, with the support the Evaluation Study of Paddy Irrigation under Monsoon Regime (ESPIM) project financed by the Government of Japan and the Vietnam Institute for Water Resources Research, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Viet Nam, convened a Regional Workshop on the Future of Large Rice-based Irrigation Systems in Southeast Asia in Ho Chi Minh City in October 2005 to identify strategies, opportunities and interventions for the sustainable management of large rice-based irrigation systems in Southeast Asia over the coming decades in the context of improved management of water resources, and to promote collaboration in the region.
The workshop intended to address three critical questions (and a number of questions derived from these) whose answers could determine the character that large rice-based irrigation systems evolve over the next 20 to 25 years, namely:
The workshop gathered fifty experts and representatives from:
1.5 The workshop process
The workshop adopted a multidisciplinary strategic process:
A field trip to an irrigation system (the Cu Chi system) was organized with specific programmes to explore different issues (environment and multifunctionality, irrigation management and operation, and farming systems). It was hoped that the field trip would lead to new issues being fed into the workshop process and also allow the participants to gain perspective from being face-to-face with a functioning irrigation system.
Evaluation of previous recommendations
Prior to the workshop, a questionnaire based on an inventory of 50 relevant recommendations at six regional and global events (the FAO 1996 expert consultation on modernization of irrigation schemes, the fifth international ITIS network meeting in India 1998, World Water Vision 2000, the first and second Southeast Asia water forums (2002 and 2005), the INPIM/FAO IMT Email conference) was prepared and sent to the participants, who were asked whether these recommendations had been implemented or not implemented, effective or not effective, and to provide additional comments. The purpose of this exercise was to inform the workshop process by identifying effective recommendations, considering the non-effectiveness of certain recommendations, and understanding why certain recommendations had not been implemented.
Drivers and typology
To support the discussion of evolution scenarios and strategic responses, the workshop produced a typology of the large rice-based irrigation systems in the region, and identified drivers of change. It was thought initially that a typology reflecting both technical characteristics of the schemes and their socio-economic context would be necessary, as different drivers would apply or the same drivers would apply differently to different classes of systems, and that possible objectives and strategic responses would also differ from class to class. The object of the typology was also to guide the subsequent steps of the workshop process towards the production of scenarios/strategies/recommendations as specific/practical as possible.
Evolution scenario and strategic responses
Considering the effect of different drivers, strategies and policies for all different classes of systems, the workshop, divided into working groups, and developed and synthesized likely evolution scenarios for each class.
The workshop then identified the implications of these scenarios in terms of service and performance objectives, design, management, operation, institutions, financing, environment and biodiversity, and multiple use. It also re-appraised present policies, strategies, programmes and intervention models, and made recommendations for new strategies and directions and concrete action.
For this, the workshop divided into multidisciplinary working groups, each reviewing and preparing recommendations relevant to a specific theme:
Figure 1. The workshop process
An important consideration in the design of the scenarios was that the implications in each domain should be shared among the working groups and recommendations harmonized in a common framework, so that the workshop as a whole would develop a set of consistent and mutually supportive recommendations. Intermediate briefing and discussions steps were thus planned in the process, and all recommendations were discussed, finalized and approved in plenary by all participants.
The process is summarized and presented in Figure 1.
Between 40 and 90 percent of the population of Southeast is engaged in agriculture or related industries, even though the contribution to GDP is between 10 and 60 percent only. Rice cultivation dominates cropping patterns in much of the irrigated agricultural lands. Large irrigation systems in the region are thus characterized by rice and indeed were mainly constructed to support rice production during the monsoon season and also provide irrigation to grow a second dry-season rice crop. Rice is recognized as a relatively low-value commodity, but attempts to promote crop diversification in the systems have often failed to provide viable alternatives for substantial numbers of farmers, whereas in traditionally non-irrigated areas diverse crop mixes and innovative land and water management strategies seem to be opening new possibilities for higher value agricultural products.
The specific characteristics of the systems and the evolution of rice consumption and the economics of rice production present additional challenges which these systems will need to face in the future. Although rice consumption per capita is decreasing and is expected to further decrease in the region, rice is still the main staple food for the people of Southeast Asia and total demand will continue to increase. For centuries, rice has been the most important source of food, employment and income for the rural people in Asia. Increases in rice production over the last 50 years have played a major role in achieving food security and alleviating malnutrition and poverty, especially through lowering the rice price. However, the green revolution has largely bypassed the unfavourable drought-, flood-, and salinity-prone areas where nearly 700 million people depend on rice production. Sustained rapid economic growth and urbanization in Asia will continue to increase the feminization of agriculture and reduce the availability of labour for rice cultivation, driving the need for high yielding production technologies with lower labour requirement.
Rice is unique in its ability to grow and yield in a wide range of agro-ecological conditions, from flooded lowlands to drought prone uplands, and from humid tropical to cool temperate climates. Rice is a semi-aquatic plant and yield declines as the soil dries below saturation. Therefore rice is grown under ponded water culture (lowland rice) where possible, accounting for about 90 percent of world rice production. Contrary to popular misconceptions, when grown under flooded conditions, rice has similar transpiration efficiency to other cereals. Nonetheless, lowland rice fields lose large amounts of water by seepage, percolation, run-off and evaporation from the water surface, and therefore require up to two to three times more water than other cereals. Much of these outflows is captured and reused downstream, and is not a true loss from rice-based systems. Nevertheless, conversion of lowland rice fields to other more profitable crops or uses, including aquaculture, is an increasing trend.
The productivity of irrigated rice systems is threatened by increasing water scarcity induced by sectoral competition and climate change (although there is no systematic inventory or quantification of the nature, extent or severity of water scarcity in rice-growing areas, and its likely impact on productivity). Meanwhile, the rainfed and unfavourable rice ecosystems experience multiple abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity/sodicity and uncontrolled flooding.
Lowland rice ecosystems have both beneficial and negative environmental externalities and unique ecosystem services which will be affected by increasing water scarcity. Compared with other cereals, lowland rice is a heavy emitter of methane and ammonia and a low emitter of nitrous oxide. However, lowland rice fields are responsible for less than 10 percent of total global methane emissions. Lowland rice fields behave as artificial wetlands in their capacity to remove nitrogen and phosphorus from contaminated surface waters. Nitrate leaching from flooded rice fields is usually negligible. Biocide use in Asian rice systems is generally low and the biocides used degrade rapidly. However, the biocides are often extremely toxic and their negative human health impact is large. Flooded rice can increase the risk of salinization and waterlogging in poorly drained areas by raising groundwater levels. Non-rice food ecosystem services provided by the lowland rice landscape can be significant, particularly for the poorest segments of the rural population. Non-food ecosystem services provided by the lowland rice landscape, such as cultural aspects, groundwater recharge, control of soil erosion, flood mitigation and sustenance of a rich biodiversity, including unique and endangered species, are equally often overlooked. The multiple uses and functions of rice landscapes are often ignored in integrated water resources management discussions, policy reform and institutional setups and need to be better valued.
Previous development and policies have been successful globally in assuring the food security of the populations of Southeast Asia, but with a continued slump in the price of cereal commodities, the benefit has increasingly been to urban populations and landless farmers and rice producers have been squeezed. Meeting the future demand for rice and reducing poverty will require: increasing resource productivity in irrigated, rainfed and unfavourable ecosystems; reducing production costs and labour requirements; improving the management of water resources in the face of declining availability; and developing technologies and strategies to cope with the likely impacts of climate change, including increased incidence of extreme events. Increasing water scarcity in many areas will change the dominantly flooded systems to more aerobic systems, bringing new challenges for increasing productivity while minimizing associated negative externalities and maintaining beneficial ecosystem services (multifunctionality) of rice-based systems.
There is however still scope to greatly increase rice productivity in unfavourable regions by developing rice varieties that are drought-, salt- or submergence-resistant, but there is less scope to further increase yield potential of current high-yielding (inbred or hybrid) varieties grown under non-stressed conditions. However, a yield gap, which has been closed in East Asia, still persists in Southeast Asia. Yield potential of modern high-yielding varieties has stagnated during the last two decades, with the exception of the development of hybrid rice. Research provides a range of options to increase the water productivity of rice with respect to evapotranspiration by manipulating early crop vigour, leaf waxiness and transpiration efficiency, and to improve nutrition quality, and these need to be combined with other successful traits, including those that impart drought tolerance. With proper investments, varieties can be developed with 50 to 100 percent increase in yield potential in rainfed lowlands and drought- and flood-prone areas within ten years.
There is also great scope to develop and deploy integrated technologies to increase rice productivity and lower production costs in the face of water scarcity, but more research is needed on real water savings, long-term sustainability and environmental impacts. Technologies that integrate components of management with varietal improvement can bridge the yield gap in well-defined target environments. The water balance of rice fields under such technologies should be quantified to identify water savings at field and system scales. Several water-saving technologies are being developed for water-short irrigated environments. The sustainability and environmental impacts of many newly developed technologies are however not well understood. In rainfed and drought- and flood-prone environments, technologies should aim at reducing abiotic stress intensities, enhancing survival and robustness of the crop to withstand stress, and stabilizing yields.
The evolution of irrigation in Southeast Asia has shown both convergence and divergence during the past decade. Although software upgrading, mainly through management transfer, institutional reform, strengthening of governance and participation, were highlighted in all countries, different countries took different actions to upgrade hardware systems.
Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand have focused on upgrading the software of existing systems to better exploit their potential, combined with small-scale irrigation development. Indonesia has highlighted institutional strengthening and interagency coordination; the Philippines has conducted policy innovations, such as "no payment no irrigation"; and Thailand has adopted participatory irrigation management.
Cambodia, China and Malaysia have seen a return of large irrigation investment and irrigation modernization has been initiated through joint efforts on both software and hardware systems. Cambodia gained support from external donors and conducted more than 20 participatory irrigation management and development projects that included both infrastructure rehabilitation and institutional reform. China spent US$4 billion on implementing a national large-scale irrigation rehabilitation programme. Malaysia increased investment to upgrade large irrigation systems in eight rice granary areas.
In Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam, significant irrigation development is underway, including various models, large and small, gravity and pumping, surface water and groundwater, mainly focused on hardware construction. Software systems are also gearing in at a comparatively slow pace. From 1997 to 2004, the irrigation area in Lao PDR increased by 140 percent. Myanmar carried out the most significant irrigation development in its history from 1995 to 2005 with the total irrigation area increasing by about 700 000 ha, mostly focused on reservoir systems. Viet Nam started modern irrigation development in 1975 and from 1988 to 1994 the irrigation expansion rate reached 4.58 percent per year, and is still expanding strongly. Pumping irrigation plays an important role in Viet Nam and accounts for 26 percent of its total irrigation area.
By the end of last century, the irrigated area in Southeast Asia reached 18 million ha, of which 80 percent is for rice cultivation, and 40 percent is irrigated by large-scale systems. Large irrigation systems have become the most important supporting systems to food security and rural development. Despite these great achievements, there was a general consensus that these large rice irrigation systems had not lived up to expectations because of the poor institutional setting and the system design, degraded infrastructure, poor management and stagnation in the face of rapid agriculture and water sector change. Farmers and field operators have adjusted and freed themselves from the constraints by exploiting groundwater, recycling water from drains and canals, changing cropping patterns, and adjusting the timing of water release. These changes have taken advantage of new and cheap pumping technologies and government subsidies and may be further challenged by increasing energy prices.
Different countries have set up different strategies, programmes and goals to meet the new requirement and challenges. The Royal Irrigation Department of Thailand has reviewed its water vision to focus on supplying sufficient water to support agricultural production, raising farmers incomes and sustaining economic development. A national strategy has been formulated to improve irrigation efficiency and water management in existing systems while expanding new small and medium systems. Relevant activities on participatory management, conjunctive water use, water disaster mitigation and environmental protection have been initiated. A national training programme was also developed with support from FAO. The Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) of Malaysia is pursuing the national modernization strategy centered on the rice granary systems and has established a structured and elaborate programme to improve system performance and service quality. In Viet Nam, investment projects funded by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank include large irrigation modernization components based on similar concepts of service orientation. In China, the government has targeted that during the next 25 years, when the country's population grows from the current 1.3 billion to a peak of 1.6 billion, the agriculture sector should maintain national food security (95 percent self-sufficiency rate) with zero water consumption increase. Hence a nationwide water saving programme is now under way through legal, institutional, physical, technical and managerial options. Modernization of large rice irrigation systems is one of the core components: China is now implementing more than 200 large schemes.
Despite some optimistic achievements, overall progress of the 1996 modernization agenda has remained relatively modest. Constraints remain: The concepts of irrigation modernization are not fully understood and properly adopted – in some cases, they have been used to continue to obtain funding for rehabilitation, operation and maintenance, or further capital-intensive interventions; policy changes have little impact since they are based on a poor understanding of basin and system efficiencies; reformed institutions do not capture the complexity of the hydrological cycle and the multiple functions of irrigation systems and service relationships between different levels of management; in most countries, PIM/IMT has made very modest progress in improving system productivity and raising the cost recovery rate; the differences between stated policies and actual practices are generally large; significant underinvestment in operation and maintenance and poor management continue to be the norm rather than the exception; in general, the performance of large irrigation systems in Southeast Asia continues to be low in terms of control, water productivity, yields, and quality of service delivery to farmers. It is therefore necessary to identify the main drivers of change, a typology of large rice-based irrigation systems, and likely scenarios for evolution and suitable options.
The workshop adopted the following typology for the large rice-based systems in Southeast Asia:
|
Technical criteria |
Main characteristics (and examples) | |
|
1 |
Reservoir-backed, gravity fed irrigation systems |
Water is stored in large reservoirs, distributed via a canal network to the fields mainly by gravity (Zhanghe system, Dau Tieng, UPRIIS) |
|
2 |
Off-river diversion irrigation systems |
Water level in the rivers is raised by dam so that water can be distributed via a canal network to the fields (SCRIS, Philippines) |
|
3 |
Off-river pump irrigation systems |
Water is pumped into a canal network, to be distributed to the fields (northern part of Viet Nam) |
|
4 |
Integrated water management systems in the deltas |
Low lying deltas, consisting of a series of multifunctional canal networks (water supply, drainage, transport) and water management structure (salinity control) and a mosaic of small irrigation systems (tidal or pump) |
|
5 |
Conjunctive groundwater-surface water system |
Both gravity fed surface irrigation and groundwater pumping |
|
Additional criteria |
Urban-rural irrigation systems |
Near or including cities or industrialized centres, steep competition for water and labour (Cu Chi, Zhanghe, Mangat) |
Various national or subnational contexts of agriculture in the region were identified. Major implications in terms of goals and strategies were identified for each of these contexts.
|
National and subnational stage |
Economic and agriculture situation |
Strategy and policy |
|
Focus is outside agriculture; Post-agriculture/advanced |
Highly diversified agriculture; resources competition; high environmental concern; diets shifting; need to conserve certain level of food production capacity; on the way to diversification |
Reduce/decommission rice irrigation areas; specialization; improve water productivity; protect environment and water quality; government investment for modernization |
|
Agricultural export main focus Intermediate/transition |
Quick demographic transition; further improvement of food security; need to stabilize rice production; rice exporting for foreign exchange earnings+C6; rely on rice production |
Stabilization and modest development of rice irrigation areas; development of small systems; increase financial self-sufficiency; further water resources development |
|
Agriculture main focus Low developed/early economy |
Urgent need for food security; possess comparative advantage; few alternatives |
Further rice irrigation expansion; strong government financial support; external assistance |
Major drivers affecting irrigation water management were found to be:
|
Common drivers |
|
|
Nation specific |
|
|
Other drivers for change |
|
|
Management related objectives/drivers |
|
|
Accompanying supports (enabling conditions)/drivers: |
|
Considering the effect of different drivers, strategies and policies for all five types of systems in the three contexts/stages, the workshop developed likely evolution scenarios. There is a general trend for countries to move from economies with an important agricultural sector towards economies with a focus outside agriculture. It is expected that such a trend will remain in the future. More specifically, and differentiated by the economic context, the following implications are expected for the various types of large scale irrigation schemes:
Reservoir gravity schemes
Because of the high costs of building large dams, these schemes are too expensive to develop for rice only in countries with economies that focus on agriculture. However, these countries can plan reservoir schemes for the future, because it is feasible to develop such schemes for countries that focus on agricultural export. These countries should anticipate non-agriculture uses. Optimizing the multiple uses of reservoir schemes will be a priority for those countries that focus their economy outside of the agricultural sector. Apart from water for agriculture, these uses may include water for the environment, recreation, energy and water for cities.
Off-river gravity schemes
Off-river gravity schemes are cheaper than other type of schemes and it is therefore to be expected that countries with early developing economies will invest in such schemes (partly because of lack of alternatives). Because of the low reliability of these schemes, countries with intermediate economies will try to improve the performance by modernizing them taking into account their inherent limitations. Countries with post-agriculture economies will probably reduce these types of schemes by converting them to other types like off-river pumping schemes or introduce conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater. Other options are converting the rice schemes to different type of crops or land use.
Off-river pumping schemes
Off-river pumping schemes with subsidized operation and maintenance will probably be an affordable investment for economies with a focus on developing agriculture. These types of schemes will not likely be extended in the other types of economies because of the high energy costs involved by growing a water intensive crop like rice. For economies with a focus outside agriculture crop diversification will be promoted and rice will be phased out.
Conjunctive schemes
Because of their high flexibility, these systems are popular with farmers who can afford pumps, and it is therefore likely that these schemes will expand in all types of economy. In the poorer economies only a few rich farmers will be able to afford pumps but in the richer economies pumps are already being used by many farmers. By pumping groundwater, farmers can react quicker to demands from the market. Because of increasing energy costs, the pumped groundwater will be mainly used for cash crops rather than for rice.
Integrated management of deltas
Integrated management of river deltas is especially important for economies with urbanization that takes place in the deltas. Early developing economies that rely on developing agriculture do not yet have high levels of urbanization and will develop river deltas for paddy cultivation. Export oriented and post-agriculture economies have to deal with urbanization through optimizing multiple use of water. Issues that have to be taken into consideration are peri-urban agriculture, protection of the environment and increased control of drainage.
In conclusion, for countries that rely heavily on developing the agricultural sector, it is still economically justified to further invest in water resources development and expand and intensify existing rice schemes. In intermediate and post-agriculture economies, trends in agricultural development will shift towards:
For these types of economy it is important that the irrigation schemes will be adapted in such a way that they can accommodate crop diversification.
A synthesis of the outputs of the different working groups is provided in Table 1.
The participants split into four thematic working groups to formulate recommendations respectively according to the four themes:
| 1) | Financing and multiple roles. |
| 2) | Design and operation. |
| 3) | Management and institutions. |
| 4) | New irrigation systems. |
Each group took into consideration the review of previous recommendations, their effectiveness and implementation.
The workshop followed an iterative process whereby the thematic groups reported and were able to comment on the work of the other groups, in order to ensure consistency and cross-fertilization of recommendations pertaining to all four themes. The final recommendations were finally presented and amended in plenary and adopted by the whole workshop.
Financing and multiple roles
|
1) |
Modernization should aim to secure reliable, equitable and predictable water supply and be responsive to the individual needs of farmers where possible. Trust farmers to respond to such a water supply, e.g. through conjunctive water use. |
|
2) |
Water-delivery systems need to be flexible (technically and institutionally) to deliver water for multiple uses (agriculture, environment, city, industry, energy generation), from entire river basins down to (within) large irrigation systems. |
|
3) |
Financing (capital and O&M) of irrigation systems needs to progressively move from subsidies to market-based incentives, and public-private cost-sharing mechanisms, as economies evolve (early -> transitional -> post-agriculture). |
|
4) |
“Early economies” should anticipate, “transitional economies” should plan for, and “post-agriculture economies” should harmonize (social, cultural, institutional, and policy) water management for different ecosystem services within irrigation areas and catchment areas. |
Management and institutions
| 1) |
Southeast Asian governments should invest in making irrigation management more professional through the establishment of continuous in-service training focused on operational management: |
| |
| 2) |
The irrigation sector in Southeast Asia should operationalize and mandate a suite of assessment and performance measures to continually upgrade and compare the effectiveness of service provision and the management of negative externalities, such as environmental impacts: |
| |
| 3) |
Existing participatory irrigation management (PIM) approaches in the region should be diagnosed, and successful approaches and their contexts identified and replicated. A key focus of initiatives to implement participatory management and management transfer should be on: |
| |
| 4) |
Propagandize! Take these messages to the governments. |
Design and operation
|
1) |
A greater awareness of the operational deficiencies of large rice based irrigation systems exists since the last FAO consultation; given the present lack of expertise and the magnitude of the problem, there is a need to develop excellent water control engineering programmes in universities and engineering schools. Related to this is the establishment of national/regional centres of excellence for irrigation modernization. |
|
2) |
Regional training programmes on modernization and the rapid appraisal process (RAP) specialized for different levels of the organization – senior managers, operations staff, designers/engineers – should be conducted. Before any new investment is put in place, RAPs should be carried out for a comprehensive diagnosis of the system, developing proper water management strategies, and benchmarking of existing and desired performance. |
|
3) |
National design standards and operation manuals should be revised to take advantage of new knowledge in the irrigation sector and state-of-the-art technologies. |
|
4) |
Pilot projects should be replicated to demonstrate modern technologies and learn from practical experience for a relatively small cost. |
|
5) |
Make use of new donor lending instruments, e.g. adjustable programme loans (APL) (longer time periods are needed to design and implement modernization programmes; typical five-year loans are too short). |
New large-scale irrigation projects
|
1) |
Before committing to new, large-scale irrigation developments a comprehensive options assessment should be made of the land and water existing use values and development options in that place. If a new, large-scale irrigation development is proposed, it should be examined by a wide-ranging feasibility analysis which is ecologically, physically, economically, politically, socially and culturally “logical”. These different logics should all be used to guide analysis and debate when examining the feasibility of a project. This should take place before progressing into the formal, legal, often rigid and relatively narrow “impact assessment” process. CSIRO’s 5-Way methodology and the World Commission on Dams’ (WCD) guidelines, where relevant, are international references. |
|
2) |
If a new, large-scale irrigation development is proposed, the design must recognize the inevitability of future demand changes and be flexible enough to take account of them. As economies improve and alter, land/water use and cropping systems will change. Therefore the function/service of the irrigation will change. From the initial stage of the development of an irrigation project, it is important to visualize the trajectory of how these changes might occur (e.g. from rice-focused production to more diversified enterprises). |
|
3) |
Large-scale irrigation projects, as with any others, should be planned, built and operated within a governance regime that embodies social justice ethics, is transparent, and participatory. Participation in irrigation governance should not be restricted to technical experts and bureaucrats, but should be open to representatives of affected communities and interest groups. The water rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders should be openly negotiated and established, with equity and sustainability being primary considerations. Management arrangements for a new project should include, from the beginning, credible representatives of different stakeholder groups. |
|
4) |
If a new, large-scale irrigation development is proposed, it is essential to increase efforts to boost the capacity of local stakeholders playing many different roles. For example, local decision-makers need to be aware of the different options and feasibilities. Public authorities need to be skilled in designing terms of reference and overseeing contracts. Local consulting firms and engineers are required to construct and then be locally available to support ongoing operation, maintenance and adjustment. User groups need to be aided to improve water use efficiency. Local civil society organizations and universities should be able to play roles in governance (e.g. monitoring compliance with negotiated protocols) and problem-solving. Supporting the development of this capacity needs to be factored into any new project. |
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5) |
In addition to the overall economic assessment, it is critical that an adequate financial strategy is put in place. The finance for complete construction must be ensured. Beyond construction, there must be a plausible strategy to ensure the availability of funds to meet full operation and maintenance costs, drawn from all project beneficiaries. |
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6) |
Irrigation projects do more than supply water. They become part of the ecosystem and may have major impacts, for example on groundwater hydrology. The year-round effects of a project on the hydrology and wider environment have to be assessed. As does the impact, whether positive or negative, on the livelihood of all affected peoples. |
7. Workshop conclusions
The workshop generated the following major conclusions:
