Water Users Association and Irrigation Management - Institute for ...

account of irrigation development and its impact on the social, economIC, and
environmental conditions (Shepperdson 1981). With the help of macro data, it was found
that the adverse effects of irrigation like waterlogging and salinity are essentially due to
cultivation of paddy and other water intensive crops and an adoption of traditional farming
methods. Further, the problems of environmental deterioration can be traced to the
disjunction between an increasingly large-scale complex and modem irrigation network
with a still largely traditional peasant farm users of that system. It shows by implication that
farmer' awareness and understanding of modem technology is essential to implement
irrigation farm technology. This aspect still remains less explored.
Kijne (\996) calculated water and salt balances for three irrigated areas in Pakistan namely;
the Chasma Right Bank Canal command area in the North-West Frontier Province and the
other two in the Punjab, in the command areas of the Gugera Branch Canal and second, the
FordwahlEastern Sadiqia Irrigation System. With the help of data on water and salt
balances, it was concluded that current irrigation and agronomic practices at all the three
sites are not sustainable and should not be continued for much longer. The study mentions
that additional studies, including regional groundwater flow modeling, are required to
predict the rate of expected soil degradation and hence the degree to which current
irrigation practices cannot be sustained. Management solutions given by the study include
reducing the area cropped in each of the two seasons, changing cropping patterns so that
smaller areas are under crops with high water consumption, or a combination of the two.
A study by Lierena (1993) of the irrigation districts of Mexico to identify the causative
factors for prevalence of salinity revealed that at the national level, the main cause of
salinity was the high water tables while in the low-lying coastal areas this could be ascribed
to lack of natural drainage. Poor water management by farmers resulted in the application
of excessive water. The low cost of water charged in the districts is cited as one of the
reasons for poor water management. Further saline intrusion and the use of low quality
water have aggravated the problem. The study has however not given any suggestions to
overcome these problems.
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