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Improving Community Spate Irrigation

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Improving Community Spate Irrigation Improving Community Spate Irrigation P Lawrence Dr F van Steenbergen Report OD 154 Release 1.0 February 2005 Improving Community Spate Irrigation abcd Document Information Project Improving Community Spate Irrigation Systems Report title Improving Community Spate Irrigation Client DFID Client Representative Mr J Tuohy Project No. DFID Project R8065. HR Wallingford Jobs MDS0540/5/7 Report No. OD 154 Doc. ref. OD154-Improving Community Spate Irrigation rel1-0.doc Project Manager Mr P Lawrence Project Sponsor Mr J Skutsch Document History Date Release Prepared Approved Authorised Notes 16/02/05 1.0 pl teb cjh Prepared Approved Authorised © HR Wallingford Limited This report is a contribution to research generally and it would be imprudent for third parties to rely on it in specific applications without first checking its suitability. Various sections of this report rely on data supplied by or drawn from third party sources. HR Wallingford accepts no liability for loss or damage suffered by the client or third parties as a result of errors or inaccuracies in such third party data. HR Wallingford will only accept responsibility for the use of its material in specific projects where it has been engaged to advise upon a specific commission and given the opportunity to express a view on the reliability of the material for the particular applications. OD 154 ii R. 1.0 Improving Community Spate Irrigation abcd Summary Improving Community Spate Irrigation P Lawrence Dr F van Steenbergen Report OD 154 February 2005 Spate irrigation is an ancient form of water management, involving the diversion of flashy spate floods running off from mountainous catchments, using simple deflectors of bunds constructed from sand, stones and brushwood on the beds of normally dry wadis. Flood flows, usually flowing for only a few hours with appreciable discharges, and with recession flows lasting for only one to a few days, are channelled through short steep canals to bunded basins, which are flooded to depths of 0.5 m or more. Subsistence crops, often sorghum, are planted only after irrigation has occurred. Crops are grown from one or more irrigations using residual moisture stored in the deep alluvial soils formed from the sediments deposited from previous irrigations. Spate systems “grow” their own soils, and rely on nutrients transported with sediments from upstream catchments to maintain fertility. This type of agriculture is very risk-prone and requires high levels of co-operation between farmers to divert and manage the distribution of flood flows. The uncertainty stems from the unpredictable numbers, timing and volumes of floods, the occasional very large floods that wash out diversion structures, and the frequent changes to the wadi channels from which the water is diverted. Substantial local wisdom has developed in the location and construction of intakes, organising water distribution, and managing flood waters and the heavy sediment loads. In some locations large irrigation systems have developed over centuries, with what at first site appear to be rudimentary diversions and canals providing a high water diversion efficiency, and a fair measure of equity between upstream and downstream water users. Command areas may range from anything between a few hectares to over 30,000 hectares - some spate schemes rank amongst the largest farmer managed irrigation systems in the world. Spate irrigation provides the livelihoods for large numbers of economically marginal people in areas as varied as the Middle East, Africa, South and Central Asia and Latin America and is mostly practised outside the formal state managed irrigation sector. The most comprehensive information on the current extent of spate irrigation comes from data compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO data indicates that around 2.3 million ha of spate irrigation are located in 13 countries in the near and middle East and Africa, with very large areas listed in Pakistan and Kazakhstan. The FAO data are based on Government statistics that often ignore the smaller farmer managed informal schemes, and they can only be taken as indicating orders of magnitude. The true area of spate irrigation might be conservatively estimated be at least twice that recorded by current FAO statistics Spate irrigation is a subsistence activity, with low returns, generating highly variable incomes between good and bad years, and requires very high inputs of labour to maintain intakes, canals and field systems. Where more reliable and rewarding livelihood opportunities are available periods of drought have forced farmers to abandon their schemes and local management structures have been undermined, causing spate irrigation systems to decline and disappear. This has been the case in some wealthier countries such as Saudi Arabia. OD 154 iii R. 1.0 Improving Community Spate Irrigation abcd Summary continued In many arid and semi arid regions the only water available for irrigation comes from seasonal spate flows in ephemeral rivers. Storing water in dams, an obvious option to remove the uncertainty associated with unpredictability of spate flows, is rarely viable due to very high sediment loads transported by spate rivers that settle in dams and reduce there useful lives, in some cases to only a few years. In these circumstances improving existing communal spate irrigation systems, and opening up new spate irrigated areas, are attractive development options if appropriate improvement models can be identified. Only a relatively small number of public programmes to develop and improve traditional spate irrigation have been carried out. One reason has been the difficulty of justifying investments in civil engineering works on systems dominated by low value subsistence farming. A second is that it has been hard to identify successful interventions, as spate schemes are, in spite of the apparently simple technologies used, hydraulically and socially complex. These complexities were not always appreciated in past improvement and modernisation projects, which have had mixed results. Very large numbers of existing traditional spate systems still need to be improved to reduce the excessive labour inputs required to keep them operating, and there are also large areas in arid and semi arid zones where spate irrigation could be introduced to improve crop yields in marginal rain fed areas. Water storage in the soil profile using spate irrigation may be a better option than storage in dams in arid zones where rivers carry very high sediment loads. At present little guidance is available to development agencies, irrigation departments, Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and consultants concerned with improving or developing spate systems. These guidelines are a first step towards improving this situation, by describing the strengths of traditional systems, and the approaches that have resulted in both successful and unsuccessful spate irrigation improvement projects. Several approaches to spate irrigation development have been followed: • Incremental farmer led improvements to traditional systems • Spate irrigation improvement projects supported by outside agencies • Investment in civil engineering to provide new spate irrigation infrastructure In the last few decades extensive civil engineering investments have been made, mostly in large spate irrigation systems in Yemen, and to a lesser degree in Pakistan, Eritrea and Tunisia. The track record of all these large civil engineering investments is at best patchy. Investments in flow division and regulation in Pakistan (for instance on the Gaj Nai in Sindh) have performed reasonably well, but the same cannot be said for modern flow diversion structures. An evaluation of 47 relatively minor spate systems built with national funding in Balochistan between 1960 and 1990 established that only 16 were still operational. In the Tihama plains of Yemen the designs of the modernised systems became more sophisticated over time. The first scheme to be modernised, Wadi Zabid, suffered from serious water diversion and sedimentation problems, and is now operated rather like a traditional system with diversion essentially controlled by bunds constructed by bulldozers. Later schemes included effective diversion and sediment handling arrangements, albeit at a high investment cost. A profound change in some large modernised systems is that they ceased to be managed by farmers. The most extreme manifestation has been in Yemen, where the Tihama Development Authority (TDA) assumed full responsibility for operation and maintenance after the civil works on the various systems were completed. TDA has struggled to find the funds needed to carry out the maintenance, particularly removing sediments from canals, required to OD 154 iv R. 1.0 Improving Community Spate Irrigation abcd Summary continued keep the schemes functioning. In other cases where new structures have been provided responsibility for maintenance is ambiguous, particularly when local capacity to manage complex civil engineering projects is limited. The main lessons learned from these experiences are: • The planning and design of the rehabilitation and improvement works have mostly been carried out without effective partnership with farmers and land users. Farmers’ valuable knowledge of spate irrigation, and their preferences regarding the scope and type of works and changes in the layout of their irrigation system were often not properly considered during the design process. • The investment costs
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