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Water management studies often overlook community diversity, different stakeholders’ values, and frames to claim water rights. Using a political-ecology approach, this article examines an irrigation system in Ecuador’s highlands via Fraser’s principles of justice (recognition, representation, redistribution). Large flower companies and indigenous smallholders frame their arguments differently to legitimize water allocation claims. Framing is effective when it resonates with other stakeholders’ values. Some unexpected findings are explained: most of the water is still used by large companies since communities took control; rules regarding water use differ greatly among sectors in the system; and small flower producers have been appearing recently.

The expansion of the Totora Khocha dam-based irrigation system in the Pucara watershed is a case of planned re-engineering of a closing watershed. This article shows how, when irrigation systems expand in space and across boundaries to capture new water, they also involve new claims by existing and emergent users. This results in complex processes of design, contestation and negotiated redesign, where irrigation projects are being produced by the negotiated construction of water networks. Therefore, the design process in a closing watershed is better approached as a dynamic and negotiated process of engineering than as a prescriptive mode of network building.

Situations of water scarcity challenge sustainability and threaten small users' access to water. In response to this problem, there has been a search for a method of hydrological analysis that can better represent the needs of small water users. While this search is rooted in the debate favouring a more participatory and inclusive allocation of the resource, it also requires a new focus on smallholder hydrology that can confront the gaps and biases found in current hydrological practices in many countries. This article looks at past hydrological practices and also at results of recent studies, highlighting the perspective of smallholder irrigators in surface water planning in Zimbabwe, and groundwater planning in India. These case studies show that wider social forces, not always best science, drive hydrological practices. However, new frameworks focusing on the water user can emerge for more equitable and sustainable water management.

In a village-based watershed in Andhra Pradesh, India, it is increasingly difficult for users to access and extract groundwater for irrigation: a ‘pumping race’ is taking place. A move from groundwater development towards groundwater management is required, with a new perspective on options for change. Through a study of borewell technology and groundwater use, and considering new local developments in electricity supply and participatory resource management, the article argues that groundwater is a resource with ‘instructions for use’. The technological dimensions of groundwater irrigation urge its study as a socio-technical process in order to design sustainable and equitable groundwater management.

Water governance of Andean river valleys that are the site of large-scale water transfers and the home to highland communities with their own irrigation practices has been the subject of research and debate since the large water transfers began. In Peru, local and regional water governance has been shaped by changing national water laws that remain controversial regarding their effects on highland water users. This article presents findings from the Colca Valley, where water has been transferred to the Majes Irrigation Project since 1983, while many highland communities still struggle to access sufficient irrigation water. It summarizes the attempts by Colca Valley communities to protect their water rights and water management institutions under a system oriented to regional and national rather than local water resources management, with a detailed discussion of the community of Coporaque. It also presents data on the area's highly variable water allowances and water use patterns, which demonstrate the need for more transparency and agro-ecological understanding of local irrigation needs and efforts to support them. Processes of representation, participation, and water redistribution are discussed as critical issues in improved regional water governance in the Colca Valley.

Growing water scarcity and increasing demands for agricultural products generate much debate about improving the agricultural sector's water use efficiency and productivity. Agricultural engineering traditions feed this debate with notions such as agricultural yield gaps and low water use efficiencies that draw attention to potential improvements. However, when perspectives are shifted from an irrigated field to a river basin, someone's (water) loss may be another's (water) gain. Such shifts in perspectives complicate the applications of our concepts of irrigation efficiency (IE), water use efficiency (WUE) and water productivity (WP). This paper studies the use and abuse of definitions and applications of concepts of IE, WUE and WP and examines their appropriate application for different scales and domains of water use. In this paper we argue that water management decisions are best informed by using IE and WP at the irrigation scheme and catchment level, respectively. This use can identify context specific opportunities and potentials for increased water use efficiency and productivity as well as the potential trade-offs in water re-allocations between diverse water users and uses.

Volumetric water control (VWC) is widely seen as a means to increase productivity through flexible scheduling and user incentives to apply just enough water. However, the technical and social requirements for VWC are poorly understood. Also, many experts assert that VWC in large-scale open canals with many smallholders is not feasible. This article debates the practice of VWC, drawing on field studies in the arid North Coast of Peru. Here the large-scale Chancay-Lambayeque irrigation system achieved high allocation, distribution and financial performance with on demand delivery to some 22,000 smallholdings, under a VWC approach, with full cost recovery for operation and maintenance. This study shows there are options to promote VWC if its different elements – volumetric allocation, distribution, metering and pricing – are planned together.

There is growing interest in conjunctive water use in irrigation management. However, most systems are introducing ‘joint use’ of surface and groundwater to overcome problems of poor water delivery or quality, rather than systems which actually maximize water utility. This paper summarizes the findings of a literature review on conjunctive use research, including the variable objectives behind its promotion and the hydrological and agricultural planning models experimented with. Effective promotion and subsequent sound management of conjunctive use technologies in irrigation require interaction between a broad range of institutions, including rural development and agricultural support agencies as well as water management bodies.

Evidence of groundwater management by aquifer users emerging under Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) initiatives is presented, by analyzing the Consejos Técnicos de Aguas (COTAS; Technical Water Councils or Aquifer Management Councils) in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, established between 1998 and 2000 by the Guanajuato State Water Commission (CEAG). Two contrasting models influenced this attempt to promote user self-regulation of groundwater extractions: locally autonomous aquifer organizations with powers to regulate groundwater extractions versus aquifer organizations with advisory powers only. The COTAS were conceived as locally autonomous IWRM organizations consisting of all aquifer users that would work together to reduce groundwater over-extraction and stabilize aquifer levels, at a later stage. CEAG followed an expedient IWRM approach to develop the COTAS, setting achievable targets for their development and explicitly focusing on active stakeholder participation. The article shows that, due to struggles between the state and federal levels, the COTAS have become advisory bodies that have not led to reductions in groundwater extractions. It concludes that achieving user self-regulation of groundwater extractions requires a fuller delegation of responsibilities to the COTAS which would not be possible without addressing the institutional struggles over water governance at the state and federal levels.

Keywords: irrigation modernisation, systems theory, design processes, operational management, water management, performance assessment, institutional reform, Pakistan, Indus-basin, Lower Swat Canal, Upper Swat Canal, Pehur High Level Canal, Chasma Right Bank Canal, National Drainage Project, protective irrigation, productive irrigation, design concepts, Mardan- and Swabi-SCARP."Trial & Re-Trial" reviews four irrigation modernisation projects in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, which had as aim to transform the traditional "protective" irrigation systems into "productive" 'crop-based' irrigation systems. The framework of systems analysis is used to analyse how concepts of modern irrigation are construed. Specific attention is given to how (operational) management issues are integrated in the designed concepts of modern "productive" irrigation, and how the different conceptions on management and 'modernity' by designers, operation agencies and water users shape the post-implementation outcomes. To gain understanding of how the practices, conceptions and strategies of water management of water users and operation agencies have been shaped by past experiences and developments, an historical analysis is made of the establishment of the Indus basin and its "protective" irrigation systems, and its development up to the modernisation programme. The modernisation projects reviewed cover the different phases of design and construction, performance evaluation, and impact assessment. It is argued that the imposition of technical design concepts through externalised interventions hampers the process of change management. Finally, the institutional reform process started with the National Drainage Project is briefly reviewed as a new approach for handling the water management issues governing the Indus basin.

During the past decade, many countries throughout the world have attempted to improve their generally poor performance record of agency-managed irrigation systems by designing and implementing institutional policy programs. This thesis analyses the institutional viability and the local impact on irrigation performance of two such institutional intervention programs. This is done in the context of the Alto Río Lerma irrigation district (ARLID), a large-scale irrigation system with a command area of more than 112,000 hectares located in the State of Guanajuato, Central Mexico. The central notion that runs through this study is the recognition that new institutional arrangements do not necessarily follow institutional design principles and top-down directives from policy makers and government interveners, but rather are created in a process of local negotiation between water users, farmer leaders and irrigation managers. This requires detailed observations on local practices, strategies and interactions on how users, leaders and managers cope with building and transforming irrigation institutions.The first intervention program analyzed in this thesis aims to transfer management responsibilities from the irrigation agency (CNA) to local newly established water user organizations (WUAs) and to make them responsible for cost-recovery. The neoliberal belief behind this program is that greater farmer involvement in irrigation management and financing would eventually lead to a reduction in public investments in irrigated agriculture as well as to higher levels of irrigation performance. The second institutional intervention program that is analyzed in this thesis deals with the introduction of water markets, aiming at re-allocating water use to uses of higher economic value. Both intervention programs clearly embark on the 'less state, more market' approach to design and implement institutional arrangements for more use and cost-effective management of scarce resources such as water and funds. The central theme of this thesis is to study how water users and local water managers deal with the problems that result from these interventions and arrangements.In 1992, ARLID was one of the first of Mexican districts were irrigation management transfer (IMT) was introduced. The Mexican IMT program is worldwide considered to be the most successful and ambitious institutional programs in its kind, both because of its scale and the speed with which the policy was designed and implemented. The claims on the successes of these and similar programs are generally ideologically driven, and empirical evidence to support the policy claim that these institutional interventions have achieved these goals remain largely undocumented. This thesis fills some of this empirical void.This thesis comprises ten chapters. After the conceptual and methodological introduction in chapter 1, two contextual chapters follow. Chapter 2 introduces the research site, and chapter 3 presents the political economic history and context in which the institutional interventions took place. Chapter 4 to 9 provide the empirical data from the intensive case study in ARLID. Chapter 10 evaluates the main empirical, conceptual and methodological findings and discusses possible implications for policy and research orientations.The first chapter provides a review of the conceptual approaches and methodologies used to study the viability of new institutional arrangements in the context of market-oriented reforms. This thesis explores the kind of conditions, processes and mechanisms that help to create viable institutions. These mechanisms do not only refer to institutional and economic relationships, but also to the relationship between institutions, and water scarcity and irrigation technology. In that sense the thesis follows the notion that irrigation technology is a sociotechnical phenomenon, with institutional requirements for use.A key concept used for analyzing the viability of new irrigation institutions is accountability. This study shows that four forms of accountability can be separated: operational, financial, political and administrative accountability. Studying these forms of accountability (and the relationship between them ) demonstrates that practices and strategies of decision making in water management are only partly influenced by rational choice and (economic) incentives for utility maximization. They are also influenced by socio-political factors.The methodological concern of this thesis is to develop a set of tools and indicators that help to assess the impacts of institutional interventions, both in terms of changes in irrigation performance levels, and in qualitative terms of processes of institutional viability. Two sets of performance indicators are presented. The first set comprises indicators that measure actual performance against set performance targets. The second set compares performance levels over time and across different system levels. The field work for this thesis comprised a wide set of methods and research techniques, ranging from intensive observations of practices and strategies for coping with the new institutional arrangements, to daily measurements of water flows in two selected WUA areas and several canals and fields in the irrigation district. Field research took place during the period from early 1995 to mid-1998.Chapter 2 provides background information on the location, history, water availability and layout of ARLID. It also introduces the two main groups of farmers that now jointly are organized in the new WUA: ejidatarios and private growers. It shows how these two groups have historically and economically been separated for almost 70 years. The chapter also provides a brief description of the Cortazar and Salvatierra module areas, their canals and WUAs that were selected for the intensive case study.Two important notions form the basis of the chapter 3, in which a detailed description of the historical and political economic context of IMT and water marketing is given. The first notion is that the legitimization for institutional interventions should be viewed in the political economic context of privatizing the Mexican country-side through dramatic constitutional revisions in the way distribution of land and water rights are organized. These reforms and revisions were started in the 1980 as a result of both a political and an economic crisis and were accompanied by wave of programs on the liberalization, decentralization and technocratization of the economy. Institutional intervention programs like the Mexican IMT program do not come on their own, but are preceded, accompanied and followed by other intervention programs that share the same neoliberal legitimization for restructuring the political and economic control over resources. The second notion is that to achieve the economic goals of these neolibral programs, the Salinas and subsequent administrations needed intervention policies such as IMT and water marketing as these would help to recover costs from the users. However, to improve greater involvement of farmers in water management, neoliberal programs are not a necessity.Chapter 4 shows how IMT and water markets were implemented, both at the national level and in ARLID. The IMT program is a typical example of institutional engineering, comprising detailed prescriptions on institutional design and a top-down approach for implementing these designs. Yet, farmers and local managers do not fully disregard these proposed arrangements. Rather than using them as prescriptive dictates, the new principles and arrangements served as a strategic starting point for the WUAs for negotiating irrigation fee levels, water marketing, mode of user representation, maintenance programs, and redistribution of O&M responsibilities between the WUAs and CNA. Local recipients have partly adopted and accommodated the new institutional arrangements. The IMT program allowed local irrigation managers, new leaders of WUAs and farmers to jointly create room and institutional flexibility to alter the proposed arrangements. This was made possible mainly because from the initial stage of implementation, CNA officials in ARLID have shown to users that they are credible and willing to share knowledge and information in a transparent way. Credibility, transparency, institutional flexibility and probity were among the most important factors to explain how operational accountability from CNA to WUAs, and from WUAs to water users, was earned in a continuous process of negotiating institutional arrangements. Furthermore, given the wider set of market-oriented reforms and constitutional revisions that farmers had become familiar with, they realized that they could hardly resist IMT.Chapter 5 provides a detailed analysis of practices, results and operational accountability for local water management. It demonstrates that official post-transfer arrangements for O&M in ARLID do not always reflect actual irrigation practices. As result, outputs of these practices in terms of relative water supply and land and water productivity remained unchanged after IMT. The main reason for this is the conflict in forms of accountability, which could not be resolved under the new institutional arrangements. Rather than adhering to new principles of using water as an economic good, farmers and local managers adhered to pre-IMT arrangements and practices of distributing water. Daily measurements of water flows and observation of irrigation practices revealed that ditch tenders (who are now employed by the WUAs) generally report planned water deliveries rather than actually supplied volumes. In that sense, they continued the practice of being administratively accountable to both users and CNA. This runs counter to the idea of encouraging efficient water use through water pricing and cost-recovery and hence being both financially and operationally accountable. Comparison of water use per hectare or per m 3of water across the 11 module areas in ARLID, shows that although water is the limiting factor in ARLID, the irrigation management strategy chosen by farmers is to maximize returns per hectare rather than increasing returns per m 3of water. As a result, water deliveries per hectare of irrigated land are generally very high. The chapter also provides some evidence that existing irrigation technology and water management regimes do not always match with the institutional capacity of the new WUAs to operate the system. The chapter also explores some ideas of approaching issues of relative water scarcity in the context of conjunctive use and in a wider setting of the entire water basin.Chapter 6 gives a detailed account of how practices, processes and mechanisms of user representation, leadership election and conflict resolution affect political accountability and institutional viability. Detailed analysis of election procedures and processes over a period of two WUA administrations demonstrate that the de jure distribution of farmer representation in the boards and assemblies of WUAs is well organized. However, the de facto control over decision making remains in the hands of a few farmer leaders. These leaders have developed several strategies to reproduce this control. These include political coercion to become re-elected; favoritism in the employment of board members and irrigation staff; corruption; and extending economic and political networks. Particularly in the case of Salvatierra WUA, these strategies have caused that accountability was hardly created. Farmers use two strategies in their trying to counter-balance these mechanisms that weaken accountability. First, they refuse to pay higher fees to signal their dissatisfaction with th WUA's management policies. Second, they call for CNA to resolve disputes over illicit payments and the performance of the WUA leadership.In chapter 7 an analysis is made of how mechanisms of financial accountability influence the institutional viability of the post-transfer institutional arrangements for irrigation management. WUAs in ARLID succeeded to boost cost-recovery and to become financially autonomous. In that sense IMT has been very instrumental to achieving the government goal of reducing public investments in irrigation. However, improved cost-recovery and financial autonomy have also helped WUAs to create room for negotiating the reformulation of important institutional arrangements such as the percentages of total revenue that had to be paid to CNA; the level of water pricing; and the conditions and prices for water trading. Financial transparency, the use of computers and external auditing helped the WUAs to become financially accountable to fee payers. Moreover, particularly in the case of Cortazar, leaders showed that they were credible when they started to use revenues from fee payments to dramatically improve canal maintenance. They also showed their willingness to fire irrigation staff that had proved to be corrupt. Yet, financial viability is threatened in two ways. First, as a result of lack of political accountability (such as in the case of Salvatierra). Second, because of the WUAs' total dependency on water availability to generate income.In chapter 8 the focus of analysis is shifted towards issues of water marketing. WUAs in ARLID indeed have used the now legal opportunity to market water with other WUAs within the district. However, unlike the common belief among neoliberal advocates of water marketing, trading is not used to price water at opportunity cost levels. Rather, the process of water marketing is used to create solidarity among the WUAs. This solidarity is needed to be able to work together in the new federation of WUAs, which has opted to take over from CNA maintenance responsibilities for the main canal system. Water trading is also used by WUAs to show their members that they are credible in the sense that they will try to deliver water at any time; even when they have to buy it from other WUAs during times of water scarcity. As a result, prices of traded water are generally lower than water prices paid for normal water deliveries during times of sufficient water availability.Chapter 9 returns to the official objectives of the IMT program and assesses the program's impact on water management. By applying a set of comparative indicators, it is shown that the result of IMT and water marketing in terms of changes in performance levels are disappointing. With the exception of improvements in cost-recovery and maintenance, there is no evidence that water is used more efficiently or that IMT has resulted in higher levels of productivity per hectare or per m 3of water.Chapter 10 first provides a full synthesis of the empirical findings discussed bove. It subsequently revisits some of the conceptual and methodological tools used for this study. This shows that the conceptual notion of social requirements for use of irrigation technology should be further elaborated to institutional requirements for use. An important notion in this respect is that institutional arrangements are a mixture of formal prescriptive arrangements, existing arrangements and newly negotiated arrangements. Existing and new institutions are the result of a continuous process of creating, negotiating, earning, and maintaining accountability. This explains why institutions manifest themselves as being contingent rather than proposed static structures that follow designed institutional principles.A revisit of the accountability concept shows that it is useful to separate different forms of accountability. This separation helps to analyze accountability mechanisms that go beyond those related to providing mere O&M services or cost-recovery; it also helps to unravel in what way providers of services are accountable, or not; and it helps to recognize in what way different forms of accountability can compete with each other. This is particularly of interest in the case of joint WUA-agency management of irrigation system, where different organizations can have competing management values and targets, and hence try to be accountable in different ways.The methodological revisit on the different sets of impact assessment tools shows that comparative indicators are useful to assess changes over time as a result from institutional interventions. Yet, they are limited in the sense that they exclusively focus on economic and productivity output oriented results. Furthermore, applying these indicators was more time and resource consuming than assumed. The reason for this are the complexity and amount of secondary data needed as well as the difficult process it takes to deconstruct the meaning of these data.This study has several implications for market-oriented policies, both in and outside of Mexico. Because of its unique political economic and constitutional context, the 'Mexican IMT model' cannot simply be copied to other countries where similar attempts of planned institutional changes are underway. Particularly the fact that IMT and water marketing in Mexico were supported by political commitment at the highest levels and by dramatic constitutional revisions and other agrarian reforms, explains why the new institutional arrangements for water management could be speedily implemented on such a wide scale. This study also suggests that institutional 'modernization' programs (such as IMT and water marketing) and physical modernization programs in irrigation should be better matched. Although physical improvement programs are often used to sell institutional reforms (and the consequent burden) to water users, they hardly ever are matched in such a sense that the proposed new technology matches with the proposed new institutional arrangements to use this technology.Chapter 10 ends with a discussion on why to orient research on institutional interventions in water management to the level of entire water basin rather than irrigation systems. Also, irrespective that universities and international research institutes need to do research in the context of a globalizing world and with globalized research agendas, a plea is made to not shift too frequently to doing extensive, quantitative and comparative studies during a short period of time. Understanding institutional change processes and their impacts at the local level requires intensive and qualitative case studies over longer periods of time. Only in this way collaboration with local research partners can fully develop, resulting in the level of creation of institutional research memory that is needed for this understanding.

This thesis describes the organisation and performance of two large-scale irrigation systems in the North Coast of Peru. Good water management is important in this area because water is scarce and irrigated agriculture provides a livelihood to many small and middle-sized farmers. Water in the coast of Peru is considered to be badly managed, however this study shows that performance is more optimal than critics assume. Apart from the relevance in the local water management discussion, the study also addresses two internationally much debated topics in irrigation water management: irrigation management transfer (from government to water users' associations) and modernisation of infrastructure.Large-scale irrigation is often associated with low water use efficiencies, low control over the deliveries and low fee-recovery. Volumetric water control is one of the solutions proposed to solve these problems. The idea behind volumetric water control is to allocate and schedule precise volumes of water to meet crop water requirements, if possible on request of the water users. The user is charged per volume of water used to prevent over-use, and to raise sufficient funds to operate and maintain the irrigation system. Many authors stress the difficulties of volumetric water control. For example: on-request scheduling is too costly in large systems with many smallholders. High-tech automatic water control systems are too expensive and difficult to operate and maintain. Setting of the Irrigation Service Fee (ISF) might be too low to provide an incentive for water saving, or might be too high for poor farmers to pay.The study aims to achieve a better understanding of the practices in organisation and performance of volumetric water control in two large-scale irrigation systems in the North Coast. The coastal zone of Peru is extremely arid. Precipitation is near zero, except once in about 15 years when the El Niño phenomenon brings heavy rains and floods. The irrigation systems depend on the highly irregular rivers, which flow from the Andean Mountains. Main crops in the coastal areas are: sugarcane, rice and maize. Two systems were selected for a comparative study: Chancay-Lambayeque (100,000 ha) and Jequetepeque (40,000 ha). In the Chancay-Lambayeque system the users pay US$ 2 per 576 m 3scheduled to be delivered at field level. In the Jequetepeque system the farmers pay a fixed fee according to the crop allowed to grow. For example they pay US$ 60 per hectare of rice.The analytical framework highlights two main points: First, the irrigation infrastructure has certain properties, because different stakeholders designed and constructed parts of it in the past. These properties set certain requirements for use. For example the manually operated, undershot gates need skilled and experienced personnel to operate them well. The properties of the infrastructure also affect the water distribution in particular ways. For example a system with undershot offtakes and no check structures in the ongoing canal transports all fluctuations in the inflow to the tail-end of the canals. This affects the farmers in these areas. Second, the organisations can be regarded as 'semi-autonomous fields' where rules and regulations are transformed and local regulations are applied. Social power relations, technical properties, environmental conditions and the interests of actors influence the rules that are used, how and when. The different organisations that manage the irrigation system form a complex entity. At different levels in the system; water users' organisations, private companies and government agencies play a role in water management. This complex entity can be studied by looking at the domains of authority the organisations have, the rules they use, and the structure of decision-making and accountability between the organisations. Conflicts can reveal the rules used and the power plays involved. During one and a half year field research many key informants and water users were interviewed and a water flow measurement programme was executed.Chapter 2 describes the setting of the two irrigation systems: the natural resources, the long history of irrigation in the area and the present production systems. As the coast is arid and plain, waterlogging and salinity are dangers of irrigation. Irrigation began already 3000 years ago. The present main canal of the Chancay-Lambayeque system was built around AD 1000 and the irrigated area then was larger than today. After the conquest the Spaniards largely continued the management of the Incas. Only when the new settlers claimed increasingly more land for their haciendas, conflicts about water grew. State interventions in the management of the systems started early 20 thcentury. At that time the idea of volumetric water control was proposed. However, it was not until the Agrarian Reform of 1969, when the management became completely in the hands of the State, that volumetric allocation and delivery was introduced. And only with the Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) to the Comisiones de Regantes and Juntas de Usuarios in 1992 volumetric charging was enforced. Today sugarcane and rice are cultivated in high input - high output production systems. Main problem for the small and middle-sized landowners is to obtain credit. The local rice purchasers ( molinos ) provide credit, which leads often to ever greater indebtedness of the smallholders. Execpt for the three sugarcane co-operatives the average landholding is 5 ha.Chapter 3 introduces the complex structure of the entities that manage the irrigation systems. Since the Irrigation Management Transfer in 1992 the Comisiones de Regantes (CRs) at the level of the secondary canals operate and maintain the secondary canals. The board of the Comisiones is elected by all water users. For the operation the board hires staff. At the level of the tertiary canals the Comités de Canal maintain (and sometimes operate) the tertiary canals. In 1994 (for Chancay-Lambayeque) and 1998 (for Jequetepeque) the Juntas de Usuarios formed private companies to take over the operation and maintenance of the main canal and reservoirs. The local irrigation offices of the Ministry of Agriculture (ATDR) retained the authority to allocate water (up to the individual plot level) and supervise the management by the water users' organisation. Besides the ATDR also the Autonomous Watershed Authorities (AACH) and the Special Project Bureaus are government organisations that have certain domains of authority in water management.The main difference in water use between the systems is that the water users in Jequetepeque apply on average twice as much water per hectare of the same crop compared to the users in Chancay-Lambayeque. This is not caused by the volumetric payment in Chancay, but by the difference in water availability per hectare. After the Land Reform the Chancay system was expanded to win political support with the new water users, whereas in Jequetepeque the luxurious water right position acquired by the haciendas was not changed.Chapter 4 describes the practices of volumetric water allocation and scheduling. The National Water Law of 1969 establishes that all water is property of the State and that the ATDR is the organisation that gives concessions for use to individual water users. The ATDR also establishes how much water each user can request maximum depending on the defined cropping zones. However, for the scheduling of water turns according to the cropping plan the ATDR depends on the Comisiones de Regantes . The Comisiones , however, generally comply with the cropping plan to avoid claims of water users for water they are entitled to. Apart from the permanent water rights ( licencia ) there are also water titles for excess water ( permiso ). This institution was already known in the pre-Inca times. It is an adaptation to the ever fluctuating river supplies. In Chancay-Lambayeque water is scheduled in ' riegos' . One riego is one hour of water delivery with 160 l/s at field level. The water users pay in advance and get the hours the next day. In Jequetepeque the turns are only scheduled at the beginning of the rice-growing season. During the remainder of the rice-growing season the water flows continuously from field to field.In water scarce periods, when supply is less than expected, the Junta de Usuarios together with the ATDR adjust the water allocations. In Chancay-Lambayeque all water users then get scheduled a fixed number of hours each 15 days. The number of riegos per hectare is proportionally less the bigger the landholding of the farmer. This results in plots only party planted with rice, but more often in plots completely planted, but deficiently irrigated. In Jequetepeque water scarcity comes less unexpected, because the reservoir has sufficient capacity for an irrigation season. Here certain campos (small clusters of fields) are excluded from rice growing when the reservoir is low.In Chapter 5 an assessment is made of the volumetric water delivery. First a framework for understanding delivery performance is given. In this framework three main factors are central: the physical infrastructure, the operators, and the water users. However, in the first place the Relative Water Supply (RWS) should be looked at. The RWS is the ratio of the delivered water and the crop water requirements. If the RWS at field level is higher than 1.5 water can be used as a substitute for control. An intensive water flow measurement programme was executed to assess the performance of the water delivery service. Water flows were measured at all levels of the canal system: from offtakes from the main canal to deliveries at field level. The Chancay-Lambayeque system with its manually operated undershot gates, few measurement structures, open and unlined canals, its irregular river supply, and complicated on-request scheduling for 22,000 water users is a 'nightmare' system. Nevertheless, the Delivery Performance Ratio (DPR) was remarkably close to 1.0 at different levels of the system, indicating that the actually delivered flows were as programmed. This together with a RWS of between 0.6 and 0.8 at field level leads to a high water productivity. The remarkably good water delivery performance was explained by the skills of the operators and the accountability of the boards of the Comisiones towards the water users. This accountability was a result of the board members wanting to win the next elections to remain in the position to make money from illegal water selling. Also radio and newspapers were used to exert pressure on the boards to perform well. In Jequetepeque the DPR was almost always above 1.0 indicating that there was more water distributed than programmed. This was explained by the fact the in Jequetepeque the RWS was about 2.Chapter 6 focuses on the financial conduct of the two irrigation systems. The charge for the water delivery service is set by the General Assemblies of the water users. They prioritise the expenditures of the Comisiones and therewith set the fee. The fees are recovered by the Junta de Usuarios (or its private company) and then distributed over the different organisations that manage the systems. The fee recovery was high. In Chancay-Lambayeque from 1993 to 1998 more than ninety percent of the distributed water was paid for (per volume). Users paid per riego , thus recovery was spread throughout the irrigation season. The advance payment could be enforced quite well because o social and technical control over the water. Only the sugarcane co-operatives in the head-end of the system took water without paying. A drawback of volumetric charging is that less river supply means less income for the organisations. Also in Jequetepeque the fee recovery was high. Here the farmers did not pay per volume and the recovery was harder to enforce because of abundant water availability. Therefore, the Junta collected the fees at the beginning of the irrigation season when the system was still dry but the rice farmers need to start their nurseries. By strict control over the water to only those users who had paid the fees of last year the Junta recovered the fees. The farmers could not wait with their nurseries until water would be available abundantly because a later start would mean a yield reduction due to low temperatures at the end of the season. This construction of technical, environmental and institutional elements that enforces the payment was called an 'obligatory point of passage'.Between 1.5 to 3.0 million dollars were collected each year in each system. This was more or less sufficient for operation and maintenance and paying taxes. The distribution of theChapter 7 evaluates the functioning and effects of volumetric water allocation, scheduling, delivery and charging. It is concluded that water control in Chancay-Lambayeque is volumetric. In Jequetepeque water allocation and distribution is only volumetric to a certain extent, and charging is not related to the volume actually applied to the field. In both systems there are two important factors shaping water management. First, the history of the institutions and physical infrastructure. Despite the many abrupt changes in the institutional setting the continuities in the long history contributed to the legitimacy of the rules and the functionality of the infrastructure. Second, the contemporary institutions bring about a power balance among the various organisations involved in irrigation management. The governance of the organisation follows surprisingly strictly the National Water Law. Only some minor rules are not complied with. Rule-compliance is partly enforced by social control among 'equal' parties: e.g. farmers in the tertiary block guard their water against theft, and engineers of the Comisiones ensure they get allocated water for their Subsector according to the rules. Rules are also enforced by the governmental organisations ATDR and AACH. They judge about certain types of conflicts (on rule violation) inside the users' organisations. Punishment of rule violation is also used in political ways: a fine by the ATDR implies exclusion of the involved water user from the next election of the board of the Comisión .The effect of volumetric water control on productivity of water is small. It is much more the water availability per hectare that determines the productivity of water. The water in Chancay-Lambayeque is 'stretched' over a much bigger area compared with Jequeteque making water more productive per volume of water applied. The volumetric charging affected livelihoods of poor farmers because it was difficult for them to find the money to pay the water turns when the crops required water. However, as the production system is high input - high output, the farmers invest much money anyway and the water fee is only 5 to 10 percent of the total input costs. The payment per volume made the board and staff of the Comisiones somewhat more accountable in water delivery to the water users.It is concluded in Chapter 8 that the power balance between the water users, different water users' organisations, private company and different public agencies shaped a well functioning entity. The general governance regulations were complied with, but locally rules on allocation, scheduling, maintenance and fee setting were refined and negotiated. It was also concluded that the analytical framework and research methods used in the comparative study were useful in revealing the complex nature of the irrigation management.

The irrigation systems of Punjab, Pakistan are not functioning effectively in relation to design criteria or farmers' needs. This under-performance is attributed to among others, scarcity of irrigation water, changes in cropping intensity and mis-allocation of available resources. Presently irrigation system management in Pakistan is undergoing institutional reforms- to introduce Participatory Irrigation Management with involvement of new Farmers Organisations in water management- that is expected to result in improved water distribution performance and financial sustainability of the system. This study was conducted to investigate the impact, value and capability of farmers' local water management actions in a large-scale canal irrigation system, to contribute in the wider debates about Participatory Irrigation Management and sustainability of groundwater use in such schemes in Pakistan.An interdisciplinary, socio-technical approach was used as the main methodological approach for this study. A comparative study method was used to analyse farmers' actions for water management. The research was undertaken in the Fordwah Irrigation System, which serves a command area of 232,000 hectares. Six watercourses along the two distributaries (at the tail of the system) were selected for in-depth study. Fieldwork was conducted between November 1996 to April 1998. Water delivery performance was measured at the outlets of these watercourses. Collective and individual water management actions were studied to understand their dynamics and their impact on improving water delivery to the farm.The study suggests that there is neither a standard set of water management activities nor they are strictly planned, in the study area. Farmers' actions are mostly subject to their desires to match water demand with supply, however one can still see some of the water management activities that are inevitable to operate the system. The actions taken and the way and time these activities are organised and performed is difficult to predict in advance. Collective action is undertaken more at the watercourse or higher level in the irrigation system, whereas individual actions are mainly undertaken at the farm level.The four main findings of the study are: 1) that farmers are knowledgeable and capable actors who take actions that improve water supply and compensate for dysfunctional delivery; 2) farmers actions are not only technically and economically sound but also have motives other than just economic benefit; 3) farmers' management cannot be classified as 'contingent management' and is rather performance-oriented; and 4) current performance indicators, which are not able to show realities of social relations shaping water availability, could be improved by including criteria to assess performance of irrigation system from the perspectives of different actors. By incorporating the way farmers intervene with the system and thus appropriate the water delivery, such new performance studies could portray local water dynamics of a system and support recommendations based on reality to improve the functioning of the irrigation system.The patterns of conjunctive water use at the farm level suggest that in future groundwater must continue to provide significant amount of water for crop production. Farmers already organise management actions in the irrigation system: new Farmers' Organisation may improve the accountability of these to other farmers.

With the support from various donors, His Majesty's Government of Nepal has implemented support programmes with a view to transform water availability, improve production, and increase the institutional capabilities of farmers to develop and sustain efficient, fair and reliable irrigation management practices in irrigation systems in Nepal. In this respect, this study aimed to understand the social, administrative and political processes involved in the social and institutional changes brought about by development interventions at local level. This study focused mainly on the physical aspects of the interventions, the way they were implemented and the consequences for local institutions.The study consists of seven chapters. The first chapter consists of the nature of the problem, research focus and research objective. The various concepts and the theoretical framework along with the various methods used in generating information are presented in the second chapter. The socio-political and administrative environment of the country along with government policies and the priority in irrigation and agriculture development in different plan periods are discussed in the third chapter. The four case studies are discussed in chapters four to six. The case studies consist of the description of the general environment along with the presentation of the cases. The presentation is followed by an analysis of the case. The final chapter includes major findings of the case studies and conclusions. The changes in the government policy at various times have resulted in differences in the intervention strategies designed for various programmes. Moreover, there was no consistency in the intervention policies for various programmes at the same time. The government policy of seeking users' participation in the decision making of project design and implementation was mixed during the 1980s, as indicated by the interventions under different programmes. For example, small-scale financial support for the improvement of the FMIS was implemented with a more or less 'participatory approach'. The processes followed in new construction projects were not based on a 'participatory approach'. However, users' participation in the decision making since the early 1990s was a precondition for the initiation of intervention processes.The study shows that the initiation of interventions is complicated and not always very transparent due to the different objectives and hidden agendas of all the actors involved such as: the users, local leaders, local and regional institutions, government agencies, and external donors. The initiative for interventions started at the local level. The users, local leaders and VP officials formed a linking loop to obtain the resources from in which, they were successful. The VP acted as intermediary between the users and the government agencies in the initiation process of the intervention. However, the linking loop did not function well during the design of the project, as the government officials designed the interventions and great emphasis was placed on the financial and technical aspects, which were not discussed at length with the users. As a result the knowledge of the users' was not fully utilised by the agency officials. The cases indicate that the interface between the users and the other actors were not so intensive to reflect a 'participatory approach'.The implementation of the intervention could be categorised into three types. They are the new construction, rehabilitation and improvement. The objective of the intervention determined the type and scale of financial, technical and the institutional involvement in its implementation. The cases indicate that most of the UCs formed for the purpose of the intervention acted as 'construction committees' and failed to function after the completion of the intervention. In this respect the objectives of creating institutions for the implementation were partially achieved, but they could not ensure the complete participation of the users. Thus, the linking loop formed to obtain the government resources disintegrated during the implementation of the project. However, users with the help of the VP/VDC were quick to form a linking loop to obtain resources for other interventions.The analysis of the cases reveals that four institutions a) the Ditthawal system, b) DIO, c) VP/VDC and d) UC were important for the governance and the management of irrigation systems. The cases also indicate that the legitimacy of the institutions was established through the confidence of the users. The formal or informal status of the institution is secondary. The cases indicate that the fundamental reform of collective-choice rule due to the changes effected by the irrigation intervention in the governance structure contributed to increasing anarchy in 'rules in use'. Besides, there was little contribution in the design by the users due to an absence of constitutional-choice rule. The study also shows that many aspects of 'conditions for successful schemes' were violated due to changes in village administration. The study also shows that agency taking over constitutional-choice rule (policy) without adequate understanding of the village needs.The construction of permanent headworks and the canal lining has facilitated the operations of the system and the task of the users has been made easier. As a result, less participation of the users was needed for the system development, regular repair and cleaning of the canal. The users however lost the social control of the irrigation system due to the introduction of new technology and their dependence on outside resources was increasing. The user allocation of water in the case study area is based on irrigable land. Three types of water distribution practices are prevailing in the case study area. They are rotation, field to field and unregulated allocation. The cases indicate that the contributions in the operation and maintenance of the irrigation system are not the sufficient condition for a fair access to irrigation water. The degree of social control on which the institutions would rely was an important factor for ensuring fair distribution of water resources among the members.Three types of conflicts have been identified from the analysis of the cases. They are the conflict between the irrigation systems over the use of a single water source. However, the construction of the permanent weir did facilitate in defining the water rights between the irrigation systems. The second type of dispute is among the users due to weak institutional arrangements for the distribution of water. The third type of conflict is between the agency and the users due to lack of intensive interfaces during the planning and implementation of the intervention, which had implications on turning over the management of the irrigation system.The nature and extent of the participation by the users reflects that the interventions were not successful in seeking the active participation of the people in decision making due to a lack of an intensive interface between the actors involved in the design and implementation of the interventions. The analysis of the cases suggests that the most common form of participation for resource mobilisation was labour, land and time. The pattern of resource mobilisation shows that the newly introduced irrigation technologies such as permanent structures of the irrigation systems make the user more dependent on the external resources. The cash contribution was almost negligible. The complexity of the technology has considerable consequences for the need for external resources and expertise. The increasing dependence on external agencies for the sustenance of the irrigation system reflects that new linking loops are emerging through interfaces between the actors involved in irrigation development. This indicates that the technical intervention is demanding new organisational control.In all the four case studies, the maintenance of the system after the interventions depended largely on external resources when it came to cash contributions. The newly introduced UCs were only functioning during the time of the intervention but were not functional in mobilising resources for the maintenance of irrigation system. This means a greater dependence on government support. When this is not forthcoming the sustainability of the FMIS is questionable. It is therefore necessary that in the future more attention be given by the government to the institutional aspects of intervention that aims at the improvement of rehabilitation of FMIS. However it was not only the intervention and the way they were implemented that led to a diminishing participation of the users in the maintenance of their irrigation system. The changes in the local, political, and administrative institutions, the opening of the villages via new roads lessened cohesion of the rural communities and opportunities were created or made accessible what led among others to a diminished social control. The provision of all kinds of facilities (school, health-posts) led farmers to look for new roles for the government e.g. to support them with the maintenance of the irrigation system.

Design and management of irrigation infrastructure in farmer managed irrigation systems (FMISs) are strongly influenced by social and agro-ecological conditions of an area. This thesis analyzes the elements of social and agro-ecological conditions in FMISs in the mid-hills of Nepal and examines their relationships with irrigation infrastructure, especially water division structures. Of the various types of water division structures, this thesis concentrates mainly on the proportioning weir, which is a fixed control type of structure.This thesis suggests that in an irrigation system, hydraulic, agro-ecological and socio-cultural conditions determine the choice of water division structures, which in turn shape the irrigation management functions and local organization's primary objective. As the current approach to irrigation development and management considers farmers as the major actor in both turnover of agency-built irrigation system and rehabilitation of FMISs, understanding of these conditions shaping irrigation infrastructure is vital for further developing them in close partnership with local community. Failure to recognize these conditions, while further developing them, can erode the existing management practices and the current and potential contribution of irrigation to local livelihoods.

The smallholder irrigation sub-sector in Zimbabwe, according to literature sources, is under threat due to what are called management problems. Poor water management and low crop yields have been cited, as has also been poor financial and economic viability, resulting in heavy government subsidies. Schemes run by farmers are said to be better managed than those under government management. This study sought to understand the implied management problem in both government and farmer-managed smallholder irrigation schemes in Zimbabwe. The study had its focus operational irrigation management, dealing with what irrigation management actually was, what it involved and did not involve, and how it was executed in practice. This was investigated in relation to water delivery/distribution, field irrigation and crop production and disposal as three distinguishable operational 'levels' in irrigation management.The socio-technical approach to irrigation was chosen as the general theoretical framework of the study since it is able to handle both social and technical aspects. A number of concepts were used namely practice, coping strategies, institutionalisation and ideology. Empirical evidence was mainly gathered with respect to Mutambara, Chibuwe and Fuve Panganai irrigation schemes. The study was conducted between 1994 and 1996 and included at least two wet and dry seasons.The empirical material demonstrated that water distribution was affected by the water source, the technology, social relations and commoditization of certain crops, which however, combined and recombined differently in each scheme it was concluded formal water allocation should not be emphasized ahead of how actually water is distributed in practice. Farmers were found to be at the very centre of field irrigation as shown by farmers' ability to cope with the demands of timing of irrigation, the amount of water to be applied and the actual application of water in the fields. Apart from the biophysical conditions of the fields, farmer's face challenges in the social realm, particularly socio-economic factors such as lack of draught power and related financial resources to adequately prepare lands for irrigation. There was also a discussion of the causes of the discrepancy between farmers and government officials in relation to operational aspects of irrigation management. These included institutionalization highlighting that certain practices were largely a result of routines having been established and ideology referring to the fact that interventions tend to be based on ideas about what ought to be done ideally, and not on practical realities on the ground.The major conclusions of the study were that the state tended to administer rather than manage irrigation schemes. In contrast farmers in all the schemes easily engaged with operational aspects of irrigation management. Farmers, however, had their shortcomings particularly, in relation to factoring extra-local factors. The findings caution against hasty conclusion that farmer management was superior to government management without understanding the coefficients of the actual management in place. It is suggested that irrigation management should be seen as composed of management domains where some actors are more active in one area than others for a variety of reasons. This observation justifies a contingency approach to management originating from organizational theory which can be summarized thus: the beginning of management wisdom is the awareness that there is no one optimum management system.