Local Irrigation Organization in Turkey's Southeast Anatolia Project (Gap): A Proposal

Abstract

Design and construction of large-scale irrigation systems poses important social organizational challenges along with technical ones. Turkey's comprehensive regional Southeast Anatolia (GAP) Project, consisting of 22 major dams and reservoirs designed to irrigate an additional 1.7 million hectares of land and to produce annually 27 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric energy, presents designers, managers, and irrigators with a large-scale common property resources (CPR) problem—something that practical experience and theory suggests must be addressed, at least in part, by effective farmer-managed organizations designed to function in the interface between individual irrigators and state water bureaucracies. Employing organizational theory and practical experience with CPR problems in irrigation—where irrigator self-interested rationality must be organized to provide collective rationality for the local irrigation communities—this paper builds upon an earlier technical review of methods of organizing irrigation water flows. It recommend an organizational design that would provide means for central GAP management and local irrigation communities to enter into mutually productive relationships capable of sustaining agricultural water productivity and social equity.