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

to ensure greater production from less land by using water more efficiently. It began with
the salinity program in the mid 1980s where the structures and processes not only involved
the community, but also empowered them. The communities were involved in identifying
the problems and their solutions. This sense of ownership has ensured action and
landholders in irrigated parts of the catchment are spending more than $40 million each
year on salinity mitigation and waterway nutrient reduction alone. The study has
highlighted that unless the community understands and owns the problem. no amount of
government spending will solve it.
Another study by Marshall (2001) in Australia, explores the possibility of the community's
involvement in the government's offer of a collaborative partnership to address
waterlogging problems in four districts for which land and water management programs
were developed in the central Murray region of Australia. Since the schemes were intended
originally for low-intensity irrigation, they were constructed without surface drains and an
intensification of irrigation contributed to worsening agricultural losses from waterlogging.
Early responses to this problem emphasized technical solutions conceived and implemented
centrally by experts. However, the need for communities and government to co-operate and
coordinate were identified by the government which coincided with growing local concerns
that the rising water tables would threaten the region's agricultural viability by exacerbating
the existing waterlogging problems as well as by causing soil salinization. The study
identified that the collaborative vision depended crucially on the details of how the cooperative
process was organized and executed. The reasons responsible for the successful
partnership was found to be trust including the integrity and inspirational qualities of the
governmental and community leaders, and the knowledge and attitudes of the people
responsible for driving the collaboration.
A study by eorbeeIs et al. (2000) undertaken in two villages of the highland areas of
Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, presents the results of a participatory survey designed to
characterize and analyze local knowledge about soil fertility and soil fertility management
practices. In each village, a sample of 25 farmers of both sexes of various ages and social
classes were drawn upon and the study used several participatory research techniques. The
principal indicators used for identifying the declining soil fertility are yield le\·els. the
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