Abstract
The performance assessment is a strategy to diagnose the deficiencies in existing irrigation systems and to take appropriate management options to correct those. Socio-economic evaluation is a part of this assessment to get a better understanding of the performance of the farming society within the irrigation system. This study was carried out to analyze the performance within Mahaweli System C by means of spatially varying socioeconomic indicators considering the Medagama management block as the study area. The education attainment, quality of housing, access to household consumer durables, access to vehicles in households, and income level of household were the selected indicators to study the socio-economic variability within the study area. A hamlet was taken as the smallest spatial unit to collect data and for mapping purposes. The overall performance index was obtained by summing up the set of indicators by providing relative weights. All the indices were mapped to show the spatial distribution and variability. According to the derived results, the origin of the settlers, the literacy level of the children, their motivation to achieve a better living condition are the factors, which influence on the variability of the socio-economic performance. A medium socio-economic performance was observed in all hamlets except in Henanigala South, where the Adiwasi people are settled. It seems that they have not well adjusted to the system even after three decades of settling. The stakeholder analysis identified the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka and farmer organizations as key stakeholders who can influence on the success of the system performance. A socio-economic evaluation is important to get a feedback of the system performance. Irrigation system performance is highly influenced by other factors such as rainfall and climate conditions, cropping patterns and crop water requirement, soil type, management factors, marketing and other monetary factors. Therefore, an overall irrigation system evaluation is needed with an overall assessment, considering the technical and socio-economic indicators. Thus, this system should be further evaluated by using indices of water delivery performance, financial, productivity and environmental performances. It is important to assess the spatial variability as well as the temporal variability of the performance to identify the improvements of the system performance with time. Tropical Agricultural Research Vol. 24 (3): 215-227 (2013)
Highlights
With the increasing population, securing of food and water has become a greater challenge in most of the countries in the world
According to Fig. 2. higher percentage of children of who’s parents with tertiary level education has educated upto tertiary level. It implies that children of educated parents have higher chances of going for higher education compared to the children of others two categories
The socio-economic performance shows a considerable variation among the 11 hamlets within the Medagama Management Block
Summary
With the increasing population, securing of food and water has become a greater challenge in most of the countries in the world. Introduction of irrigation into dry areas and increasing productivity by innovations have been attempted. Irrigation is critical to food security and economic growth in a country. The wide gap between actual and desirable performance threatens the sustainability of irrigated agriculture. The challenges for increasing the productivity of irrigation systems have forced countries to think of new strategies. Diagnosis of existing irrigation services and modernization options are needed. This type of diagnosis process can be achieved through performance assessment (ICID, 2010)
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