RESEARCH REPORT ON Community Water Management from a micro level perspective AQUATIC AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS-KHULNA HUB October 20, 2015 Mustafa Bakuluzzaman Ms. Sabekun Naher 1. Preamble and Background Information Bangladesh is the most vulnerable countries in the world for the impacts of climate change. Southern Bangladesh faces HUB Development Challenge due to increasing salinity, changing hydrology, climate change, complex and dynamic markets and social change that impede achieving sustainable and continual improvements in agricultural activity, livelihoods and nutrition of poor communities.HUB Development Challenge and identification of water management on the basis of priorities are equally important issues for reaching the goals of the study. Present community water management initiatives which aimed to know the water management past and recent practices in the AAS (Aquatic Agricultural Systems) communities will contribute to the HUB Development Challenge through two complementary components.Implementing innovative approaches for land and water management is the first action aimed to micro-scale management of land and water by forming Land and Water Groups (LWD) within each community which include one female and one male member. These approaches stick to a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach which lead to the definition and empowerment of LWGs, training and consultation about potential improved practices and definition of experimental plans (introduction of new crops, change in cropping calendar, innovative drainage and/or irrigation techniques, how farmers collectively managing these practices) by each group for water management, agriculture and aquaculture activities. These new practices support to increase productivity of agriculture and aquaculture, higher incomes, reduce water and land conflicts and improve coordination for the AAS community members. The second initiative is to assess the impact of the implementation of innovative land and water management practices on agriculture and aquaculture, water management, community empowerment and food security for those communities. 2. Methodology and Field Plan 2.1 Study Area and Sample Size District Polder Upazila Union Villages Surveyed Questionnaire Polder 29 Dumuria Sahas 6 168 Sarappur 1 28 Khulna Polder 30 Batiaghata Batiaghata 2 56 Gangarampur 3 84 Barguna Polder 43/2f Amtali Gulisakhali 6 168 Polder 3 Debhata Noapara 1 28 Satkhira Kaliganj Nalta 2 56 Tarali 3 84 1 | P a g e Shushilan_Field Observation Report Total 4 5 8 Unions 24 Villages 672 2.2 Team Composition Team Leader Field Field Data Enumerators Data Entry Operators Management Coordinator 1. 1. Aman Ullah 1. 1. Anup Kumar 2. 2. Zakirul Islam 2. Debnath 3. 3. Aminur Rhaman 3. 2. Mohon Sardar Md. Atikul 4. 4. Habibur Rahman 4. 3. Ashish Kumer Sarker Md. Saidul Islam Shah5. 5. Nasrin Akther 5. 4. Onadi Krisna Roy Islam 6. 6. Abdul Based Mustafa and 7. 7. Provash Kumar Sabekun Naher Bakuluzzaman Mondol 1. 1. Dipti Gain 2. 2. Hasan Al Zahid 3. 3. Lenin Sarker Sabekun 4. 4. Tanjim uddin Naher 5. 5. Shanta Kar 6. 6. Mijanur Rahman 7. 7. Apurbo Roy 2.3 Sampling Technique The imperative instrument of this study is household questionnaire for improving Community Water Management from a micro level perspective. This study exercised structured interview schedule using random and stratified sampling method to collect the number of total households and sample households of a village from the study area. The population list for identification sample size was collected from tax assessment lists of Union Parishad in control villages, World Fish in AAS villages and from Program Officers of AAS in IWMI-AAS villages. Then IWMI (International Water Management Institute) finalized the household list through random sampling using those sources. 2.4 Training and piloting The training and piloting had conducted by International Water Management Institute (IWMI) resources personnel with the help of data collector team in Shushilan Head Office at Khulna. The training was consisting of one and half days in 27 th to 28th August’ 2015 and piloting (one and half days) held at 28th and 29thAugust’ 2015. The first day piloting started at 2:00 pmand end at 5:00 pm; going to Batiaghata village for data collection. The second day piloting started in 8:00 am and ends 2:00 pm and went to Titukhali for identifying is the questionnaire matching the field or not? The problems regarding questionnaires and improving the efficiency of data enumerators about questionnaires also be evaluated. The survey team also observes here that how many times will take to conduct a single interview. What response we can get about crop economics, aquaculture, and water managementissues from farmers and we tries to find difficulties. How can we ask an easy way the questions through to respondent? After back from field we discussed among us on the basis of field piloting, we shared our difficulties and problem to IWMI. Our target was that all decisions and throwing pattern of questions as will be the same that we can achieve the study goals. 2.5 Questionnaire review and final Development The household questionnaire was developed by IWMI in English and translated into Bangla by the staff of Shushilan. Most of the questions are structured format. There are a few of question corrected 2 | P a g e Shushilan_Field Observation Report by research investigator based on during training and piloting. During training, we arranged demy interview or MOCK test for interviewer as he/she could memorize all questionnaires. Which question is not appropriate or difficult to understand for interviewee or not able to give us suitable information for better result of data collection that had tried to revise. We were very conscious as every respondent can understand and give us good answer asking question by interviewer. It was also finalized to discuss with IWMI personnel. 2.6 Field Plan Tasks Deadline Responsible Person Confirmation of data enumerators and 20th August Shushilan HR data entry operators Translate Household questionnaire 21th August-24th Mustafa Bakuluzzaman from the English to Bangla August Collection of household/voter list 18th August Md. Saidul Islam from respective UP/Upazila, World Fish Movement of field team from Dhaka 26th August Md. Saidul Islam to Khulna (for orientation) Training and Piloting 27th to 29th August Mustafa Bakuluzzaman, Archisman, Md. Saidul Islam, Shourav and Sabekun Naher Finalization of study instruments and 30th August Md. Atikul Islam Shah, Md. detailed field plan Saidul Islam and Sabekun Naher First Field Work (Khulna) Fieldwork 31th August-5th Md. Atikul Islam Shah, Md. September Saidul Islam and Sabekun Naher Data entry 1 September-10th Mustafa Bakuluzzaman, Md. September Saidul Islam and Sabekun Naher Revise Field plan and give rest to the 6th September Md. Atikul Islam Shah and enumerators Sabekun Naher Movement from Khulna to Barguna 7th September Md. Atikul Islam Shah and Sabekun Naher Second Field Work (Barguna) Fieldwork 8th September-10th Md. Atikul Islam Shah and September Sabekun Naher Data entry 11th September-16th Sabekun Naher September Movement from Barguna to 11th September Md. Atikul Islam Shah and Munshigonj, Satkhira Sabekun Naher Third Field Work (Satkhira) Revise Field plan and give rest to the 12th September Md. Atikul Islam Shah and enumerators Sabekun Naher Fieldwork 13th September-15th Md. Atikul Islam Shah and September Sabekun Naher Data entry 17th September-21th Sabekun Naher September Movement of field team from Satkhira 16th September Md. Saidul Islam and Sabekun to Dhaka Naher 2.7 Data Collection Shushilan with its experienced research team had conducted household interview by face to face interview process. The sample size was 672 households located in 24 villages from 4 polders of 3 | P a g e Shushilan_Field Observation Report Khulna, Barguna and Satkhira. Households’ data was collected through random sampling method. The field coordinatorhad provided to data enumerator a name list where was containing different name of respondents and marked 4 selected and 4 reserve respondents for data collection in case of control village and AAS village. In IWMI-AAS village there was no reserve list (In exceptional cases, sometimes enumerators got reserve by coordinationwith supervisors. So, total numbers of 8 respondents given to interviewer before starting their interview. They move through village every working day taking their name list. It was mandatory that he/she used to meet selected ID if any research assistant could not get selected respondent then he/she can take another name from reserve section. If due to different complication of respondent, could not reach 8 respondents during visit at home or data collection, then it was an opportunities to make conduct from outside of list. Every working day of data collections, all RA could done 4questionnaires with pay attention. Global Positioning System (GPS) machine made use of keeping a record of the surveyed households and to authenticate the data. 2.8 Data Management There were 20 team members of this study. Each day two team went to collect data from the field and total data enumerators of team members were 14 excluding 2 supervisors. Each team was composed by 7 Research assistants and 1 supervisor. Every working day, two teams conducted 56 questionnaires. It is mentioned that each team confirmed 28 questionnaires. All types of study related activity monitored by IWMI resources personnel. After returning the field, all the data enumerators of each team cleaned the questionnaire and submitted to Supervisor in the evening meeting. Then, Supervisor verified the questionnaire, whether there any mistake or not. Data entry operators also join with us and shared their findings how we can make error free questionnaire. If there was any mistake, any understanding problem, Supervisor had given feedback to data enumerators to accurate over phone to the respondents. In this way data had been cleaned. After cleaning the data, we were provided all questionnaires at data management team. 2.9 Data Entry Procedure There were 4 data entry operators of data management team with in mind that they were able to double entry each day collected data.