62) decentralised governance of irrigation water in cambodia - CDRI

CHAPTER 4 CASE STUDY SITES
4.1 Rolous Scheme
Rolous irrigation scheme is located about 7 km to the west of Stung Sen Town (the
provincial capital of Kampong Thom province). It is typical of a shallow bundled reservoir.
Water flows into the scheme through five areas: Po Bakrong Bridge, Balang drainage pipe,
Tbong Cham Bridge, Prek (stream) Sbove, and Prek O Lok (Figure 2). Stung Sen, Prek Sbove
and Chong Mong streams contribute the largest proportion of water to the scheme. The command
area of the scheme is about 1,009 ha; it crosses seven villages and four sangkats/communes 4 : O
Kunthor, Kampong Rotes, Damrey Cheankla and Sroyov. There are three topographic levels of
paddy land in the Rolous scheme. The lowest level rice paddies are in the south-west, the midlevel
paddies are around the centre of the scheme and the highest level paddies are in the east.
Figure 2: Map of the Rolous Irrigation Scheme and In-depth Study Site
A 4 km long dam was built in 1969 to store water for agriculture in the Rolous command
area. In 2004, it was rehabilitated by Social Business Khmer (SBK) Research and Development
and has seven “gates” or head-structures, two drainage pipes and 13 regulators. Rolous is
considered a medium-scale irrigation scheme and it benefits approximately 882 households.
Main, secondary and tertiary irrigation canals within the system were built during the Khmer
Rouge regime (1975-1979) and have since deteriorated due to lack of regular maintenance
and repair. These canals were severely damaged by the Ketsana storm in September 2009. The
seven head-structures are used to control the flow of water into the scheme. These gates are
closed during the wet-season to store water for use during the dry-season.
4 Data collected from the annual report 2010 of Social Business Khmer (SBK) Research and Development.
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