A case study on water price calculation of key projects at Fenglinwan irrigation areas in JiangXi Province, China

Abstract

Reasonable water price plays an important role in the healthy operation of an irrigation area. This study evaluates the current operation and management of Fenglinwan irrigation area in JiangXi Province, including implementation of agricultural water price, employee salary, current comprehensive agricultural water price and investment of engineering facilities. The cost of agricultural water supply of key project in irrigation area and the total cost of irrigation area were calculated to measure the agricultural water price. The result shows that the cost which has been spent for operation and maintenance of irrigation area was about 3.76 million yuan per year and the total cost for irrigation area was about 5.33 million yuan per year. The excessive number of employees and low wage level have greatly affected the work enthusiasm of employees. The cost of engineering maintenance was too small to guarantee the good operation of irrigation and water conservancy projects. The current implementation of agricultural water price which is about 20 yuan per mu is lower than the evaluated operation and maintenance cost for agricultural water supply which is 71.13 yuan per mu. A part of that, the current comprehensive agricultural water price which is 49.20 yuan per mu is also lower than the whole cost for agricultural water supply which is about 100.87 yuan per mu. Neither the current implementation of agricultural water price nor the current comprehensive agricultural water price can meet the basic requirements of operation and management.