Water for agriculture: challenges and opportunities in a war zone

Wars, drought and social collapse have greatly impaired land management and agriculture production systems in the southeastern Afghanistan provinces of Khost, Paktika and Paktya. This region has long existed with limited central government influence and remains particularly unstable. A complex physical and social geography, on-going warfare, severely limited mobility and policies poorly adapted to regional realities hamper development and reconstruction. On-farm water efficiency improvement, watershed-scale work restricted to small, socially homogeneous watersheds and word-of-mouth Afghan-to-Afghan technology dissemination are particularly important development strategies in this environment.     

Community-based initiatives in the Dutch water domain: the challenge of double helix alignment

ABSTRACT

Community-based initiatives (CBIs) are emerging in many domains such as care, sustainable energy and water management. This paper examined three initiatives in Dutch water management, focusing on their relationship with water boards. CBIs present issues that water boards find difficult to respond to because of two reasons. First, CBIs are demarcated very differently from the formal tasks that water boards pursue. This calls for internal alignment within water boards to respond adequately. Second, CBIs necessitate external alignment with other water-managing governments. Water boards must therefore implement double helix alignment to relate productively to initiatives emerging in society.     

南水北调中线工程是保证天津经济发展的重要条件

天津是北方重要的交通枢纽，综合性工业基地，现代化国际港口城市。总面积１．１万平方公里，总人口９２０万人，人均水资源量４７３立方米，仅为全国的１８％，各河进入市境的水量逐年减少。过境入海水量５０年代为１４４．３亿立方米，至８０年代降至９．８亿立方米，汛后各河基本无水可取，中央决定再次引黄救急，并于１９８３年兴建引栾入津工程。引栾水后人均水资源量也仅５９７立方米，仅占全国平均的２２．７％。最新预测，本     

Institutional Aspects of Water Management in Central Asia Water Users Associations

Abstract

The way water resources in the former Soviet Union (FSU) were managed in the second half of the past century had both positive and negative effects and contributed to the existing situation. On the one hand, extensive development of water resources led to the transformation of millions of hectares of virgin lands into agricultural production, providing millions of people with food and livelihoods. On the other hand, the over-exploitation of water resources led to drastic changes of the environment: many water bodies, such as lakes, small rivers, and delta wetlands dried up. The Aral Sea basin is one of the dramatic examples of the negative impacts of large-scale irrigation interventions. The state-controlled era of development in the Soviet period has a legacy of standardized procedures and rules formulated at the top. The shortcomings of such a water management included fragmentation, duplication, and a highly administrative approach without considering the needs of the environment and input of water users into planning, allocating, and managing of water resources. This paper presents an analytical view of the role and importance of water users organizations/associations (WUOs/WUAs) in the irrigated agriculture and under irrigation management transfer (IMT) in Central Asia region. International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Scientific Information Center of Interstate Coordination Water Commission (SIC ICWC) conducted the “Best Practices.” Projects including activities covered Syr Darya and Amu Darya basins of Central Asia. During the first stage of the project (01.04.1002-31.03.2002), the monitoring objects were: 30 district water management organizations (DWMO), eight WUAs, 58 collective farms (CCF), and 61 private farms (PPF) from eight provinces Central Asia) project for conserving water resources by involving water users into water savings. The primary strategy was to propagate application of inexpensive technical and managerial methods and measures to save water by users themselves. The project is a joint project of IWMI and SIC ICWC aimed to monitor and disseminate the best practices of water conservation initiated by water users. The first year of the “Best Practices” project accomplished a broader involvement of water users into the water conserving methods, therefore continuing the beneficial good water management practices. It also continued to involve the water supplying organizations and various groups of water users (collective farms, farmers, and water users' associations). The major interest was to analyze the impacts of the different water conservation and management practices on productivity of water use.     

Application of integrated environmental management through the preparation of an environmental action programme: Case study from the Songkhla Lake Basin in southern Thailand

The concepts and principles for integrated environmental management (IEM), which is based on a strategic and participatory approach to environmental and regional planning, has been successfully applied to a large lake system in the southern region of Thailand. The application was achieved through the Danish Cooperation for Environment and Development funded project ‘Environmental Management in the Songkhla Lake Basin’ (EmSong Project) in the Office of Environmental Policy and Planning within the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment. Through the application of the methods and tools for IEM, including the use of a participatory and strategic planning approach, and the establishment of a comprehensive database and an integrated surface water model for the lake system, an environmental action programme (EAP) has been developed. This action programme, which is based on a broad consensus at the local and regional level, includes vision and mission statements, resource objectives and strategies for management from an economically and ecologically important lake system in Thailand. The operational part of the EAP is a project catalogue, which contains immediately needed projects described to an international pre‐feasibility level. The former is the tangible output of the EmSong Project. A more intangible output from the EmSong Project is committed and informed local and regional government and community‐based organizations.     

参与式灌溉管理在疏勒河流域灌区的实践

随着农业种植结构的调整和水利工程管理体制的改革,甘肃省疏勒河流域灌区围绕改善农业生产基本条件、调整农业结构、减轻农民负担、增加农民收入的目标,进行了灌区管理机制的改革,积极推广农民用水户参与式灌溉管理.通过3年的实践,健全了协会的管理职能,明确了协会和用水户的责任、权利、义务,避免了搭车收费现象,促进了节约用水.     

Watershed management in Thailand: concepts,problems and implementation

Problems of water resource management are becoming increasingly severe in most countries of the developing world. Already from early in this century it was recognised, wherever water resource management problems began to manifest themselves, that the most appropriate level upon which to study and confront these problems was the river basin. This paper reviews various approaches that have been taken to river basin management and the way in which these have surfaced from the particular range of problems and the political context from which they emerged. Since the end of the 1970s, the rapid development of Thailand has brought into focus the need for integrated resource management as a basis for overcoming increasingly severe problems of drought and flood. Deforestation is seen as a major cause of these problems and so it is in watershed management that the first initiatives are being taken. The paper describes in some detail the system which has been adopted and finally discusses the political and administrative problems facing implementation of the system. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

水资源合理配置在实施最严格水资源管理制度中的基础性作用

阐述了水资源合理配置的含义、原则及方法,介绍了近年全国层面开展的主要水资源配置工作,分析了水资源合理配置在实施最严格水资源管理制度中的基础性作用,说明了合理配置在水资源管理中具有重要的作用。     

Roman water law in rural Africa: the unfinished business of colonial dispossession

This study reviews combined rainfall observation using both radar and rain gauges. Sampling error theory is introduced and applied to an evaluation of the rain gauge network of the upstream region of the Imjin River Basin in North Korea. Under the assumption that the Ganghwa Radar is properly calibrated, an additional 13 rain gauges (including the eight that are currently in operation) is deemed sufficient to secure the quality of rainfall observation with 37 rain gauges without radar.     

中国建立水银行制度的理论初探

水银行制度是实现水资源市场化管理的有效途径,是解决水资源供需矛盾的管理工具,是走向现代水利的制度机制和融资形态。通过对水银行制度概念、目标、形式以及运作过程的分析,结合中国水资源管理和水利工程建设的实际情况,分析水银行制度下水权交易的主体、市场和定价机制,力图构建符合国情的水银行制度。     

Ten building blocks for sustainable water governance: an integrated method to assess the governance of water

A three-step interdisciplinary method to assess approaches to water shortage, water quality and flood risks is presented. This method, based on water system analysis, economics, law and public administration, seeks to create common understanding based on newly developed concepts and definitions. First, generating content knowledge about the water system and about values, principles and policy discourses. Second, providing an organizational process with sufficient stakeholder involvement, insight into the trade-off between social objectives, and attribution of responsibilities in addition to regulations and agreements. Finally, implementing the agreed service level through adequate infrastructure, enforcement and conflict resolution.     

Strategic Water Resources Planning: A Case Study of Bangladesh

Many agrarian countries have heavily invested in large-scale water projects to promote their agricultural development. There have been, however, few attempts to devise strategic water resources planning accounting for the macroeconomic linkages ofagriculture. This article presents such a strategic water resourcesplanning framework for Bangladesh. First, a dynamic costminimization model is solved to compute the optimal investmentneeded in various water projects such that an agricultural growthtarget can be met. Next, the minimum cost solution is againderived accounting for the macroeconomic linkages of agriculture,which, under different macroeconomic scenarios, results innoticeably different policy implications for optimal waterplanning. These results suggest that the traditional sectoralapproaches of planning water investment projects are generallyinconsistent with the broader macroeconomic reality of Bangladesh.     

水利改革发展对水资源规划与管理需求分析

总结了国内外传统水利发展沿革,提出传统水利发展存在的问题,进而分析了新时期水利改革发展的趋势。在此基础上．总结分析了新时期水利改革发展大背景下水资源规划与管理的需求．为我国水利改革发展提供技术支撑和经验总结。     

The limits to participation: branch-canal water user associations in the Egyptian Delta

Egypt has valuable experience with water user associations in irrigated agriculture. Internationally funded irrigation improvement projects aiming to increase irrigation efficiency have introduced water user associations at the branch-canal level alongside improvements to the infrastructure in the Central Delta of Egypt. In this article we review those water management practices in which these associations are expected to participate. Our main finding is that their role in these areas is minimal and that they are generally weak organizations. Either such organizations should be genuinely strengthened legally and politically, and given real responsibilities and resources, or the entire idea of participation should be abandoned.     

Uncertainty Matters: Computer Models at the Science–Policy Interface

The use of computer models offers a general and flexible framework that can help to deal with some of the complexities and difficulties associated with the development of water management plans as prescribed by the Water Framework Directive. However, despite the advantages modelling presents, the integration of information derived from models into policy is far away from being trivial or the norm. Part of the difficulties of this integration is rooted in the lack of confidence policy makers have on the incorporation of modelling information into policy formulation. In this paper we examine the reasons for this apparent lack of confidence and explore how some tools, presently in use, address this problem. We conclude that public confidence in models is highly dependent on the way uncertainties are addressed and suggest possible directions of action to improve the current situation. Four real case studies illustrate how computer models have been used in The Netherlands for carrying out management plans at regional and national scale. We suggest that the solution to integrate modelling information into policy formulation lies on both the modelling and the policy-making communities.     

沮漳河洪水管理的思路

通过分析沮漳河流域在洪水开发、利用、管理中存在的主要问题,提出沮漳河流域洪水管理思路是转变观念,由控制洪水向洪水管理转变,实现人与水和谐相处,建立流域管理机构,给洪水以出路,洪水资源化,改善和加强生态系统的保护、建设,重视非工程措施和提高水资源的承载能力.     

A review of the sustainability of recent watershed management programmes in Bangladesh

Watershed management has evolved during the 1990s in Bangladesh. However, it has not yet achieved much exposure in the country, even though wetlands play a very significant role in its ecology, economy and stakeholder livelihoods. Several watershed management programmes have been initiated in the country with a co‐management and participatory approach, but in a piecemeal basis. Many wetland problems have arisen as a result. This study reviews watershed management programmes and undertakes a sustainability analysis of three recent initiatives, namely MACH, Nishorgo and Tanguar Haor projects, on the basis of the main watershed exchanges. This analysis indicates these projects are/were less environmentally, but more socially and economically, sustainable. Thus, this study suggests first incorporating the unaccounted environmental sustainability indicators. Moreover, the country's future management programme(s) should incorporate stakeholder livelihood improvements and social empowerment via education and training schemes, by ensuring social inclusiveness that makes the management initiatives locally sustainable.     

节水型社会建设的目标任务和实施

综述了中国节水型社会建设的目标、任务和实施。指出这一建设,目标宏伟、任务艰巨,必须通过生产关系和生产力的改革方能实现。经10年努力,现已取得初步成效,进入加快建设过程中。     

Ecosystem-based management in challenging conditions: implications of a case study from north-eastern Turkey

This paper studies ways to implement ecosystem-based management (EBM) regardless of data and governance conditions. It focuses on a case study from Turkey and considers how EBM can be implemented under certain specific challenging conditions. The case study provides conceptual context diagrams of actual and hypothetical situations and then compares them using soft systems methodology. This comparison emphasizes the need for a firm political will that fully enforces regulations on the protection of water resources. The paper also recommends a productive stakeholder engagement that empowers locals and uses local knowledge to meet information requirements for progress towards EBM implementation under challenging conditions.