Water Management Institutions Research Articles

Assessment of ecological flow rate by flow duration and environmental management class in the Geum River, Korea

This study attempted to analyze flow duration in a basin using a method to estimate environmental flow developed by the International Water Management Institute, and simulate the effects of runoff characteristics unique to a river and flow variability due to basin developments on aquatic ecosystems. To do so, KModSim, a simulation model for basin-wide water distribution, was used to assess flow duration in the Geum River basin, one of the four major river basins in Korea, by environmental management class (EMC). Flow duration curves by EMC at Sutong and Gongju sites were derived on the basis of natural flow in the Geum River basin. As a result, they were found to be consistent with the results of previous studies. Time series of mean monthly flow data by EMC were plotted together with those of simulated flow data by reservoir operation scenario; Sutong and Gongju points both showed flow behaviors corresponding almost to “A” in EMC. In addition, the characteristics of habitats by species of fish were identified through monitoring fish habitat at the Sutong site, so that optimal ecological flow rate was estimated. For this purpose, relations between flow discharge and weighted usable area for Coreoleuciscus splendidus and Pseudopungtungia nigra were projected using physical habitat simulation system, and EMCs consistent with flow duration curves (estimated taking in-stream flow) were assessed. The results or findings reported in this study are expected to serve as basic data for making a plan to efficiently monitor and manage aquatic ecosystems in the Geum River basin.

Does individual responsibility increase the adaptive capacity of society? The case of local water management in the Netherlands

In different parts of the world, neo-liberal politics is shifting responsibilities from the nation state to other governmental and non-governmental actors. This is also evident in the governance of adaptation to the impacts of climate change, where the responsibility of the individual is increasingly stressed. This paper focuses on institutions for local water management in the Netherlands and aims to explain how the institutional shift to individual responsibility affects the adaptive capacity of society to deal with the impacts of climate change. The paper uses a case study approach in which stakeholders are interviewed; the analysis is then structured along an ‘Adaptive Capacity Wheel’. It concludes that the recent institutional shift creates different challenges for increasing the adaptive capacity, amongst others: a lack of clearly defined responsibilities and accountability procedures, scattered and not easily accessible information to individuals, an overlap in municipal and individual responsibility, and differences in social context that call for context-specific management approaches pose challenges to increasing the adaptive capacity. The paper also draws conclusions on the methodology used.

Briefing: Making space for green places

Green infrastructure can provide sustainable regenerative solutions for the urban challenges to be faced now and into the future. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) has produced a publically available report on current policy and legislation regarding green infrastructure for policy-makers and practitioners. This briefing outlines the report's findings in terms of the benefits that can be derived from green infrastructure, the challenges to increasing green infrastructure provision in urban areas and the institution's suggestions as to how these challenges might be met.

Corrigendum—Biofiltration of methane and trace gases from landfills: A review

C. Menard and M. Heitz. Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnological Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universite de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC J1K 2R1, Canada. A.A. Ramirez. Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnological Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universite de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC J1K 2R1, Canada; Research and Development Institute for Agri-Environment (IRDA), Quebec, QC G1P 3W8, Canada. J. Nikiema. Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnological Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universite de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC J1K 2R1, Canada; International Water Management Institute (IWMI), West Africa Office, PMB CT 112 Cantonments Accra, Ghana, West Africa. 152

Current situation of cadmium-polluted paddy soil, rice and soybean in the Mae Sot District, Tak Province, Thailand

Since 2002, a joint research team from the International Water Management Institute and the Department of Agriculture, Thai Government, has reported that there are cadmium (Cd)-contaminated paddy fields in northern Thailand. We evaluated the current situation of the Cd-polluted paddy fields in this report. Home-consumed rice grains were collected from all 23 households in the village of Pha Te, Mae Sot District of Tak Province, Thailand. The Cd concentration in unhusked rice (Oryza sativa L.) grains ranged from 0.04 to 1.75 mg Cd kg−1, and the rice of more than half of the households contained Cd levels higher than the critical level of 0.4 mg Cd kg−1 polished rice, which is CODEX standard. Among the paddy fields, we selected one plot (1.2 ha) and analyzed Cd concentrations of the soil, and rice and soybean (Glycine max L.) grains. In this area, a rotation cropping system of wet-season rice and dry-season soybean is common practice. The soil Cd concentration ranged from 0.31 to 13.9 mg Cd kg−1 (total Cd) and 0.030 to 13.3 mg Cd kg−1 [extracted with 0.1 M hydrochloric acid (HCl)], the Cd concentration in the rice grains ranged from 0.12 to 1.27 mg Cd kg−1, and that in the soybean grains ranged from 0.07 to 0.80 mg Cd kg−1. The soil extractable Cd concentration was well reflected in the soybean grain Cd levels (r2 = 0.581), but not in the rice grain levels (r2 = 0.015), suggesting that rice grain Cd levels are influenced not only by the soil Cd concentration, but by other factors as well, such as soil water regime and soil pH. However, a significant difference in the grain-Cd concentration was found; that is, lower Cd in the cultivar “Khao’ Khaeng” and higher in the “Khao Dawk Mali 105”, which suggests a possibility of selecting a rice cultivar having low-grain Cd.

Claiming Space, Claiming Water: Contested Legal Geographies of Water in South Texas

Current scholarship on poverty in the U.S. borderlands argues that limited low-income housing and unenforced land development regulations cause poor domestic water access in south Texas's predominantly Mexican-American rural and periurban low-income communities (colonias). In this article, I argue that water politics, not only poverty or failed public policy, determined the trajectory of inadequate water access. Drawing from legislative archives, legal documents, and court records, I examine two companion legal cases (Jimenez v. Hidalgo WCID 2 et al. [1971] and Fonseca v. Hidalgo WCID 2 et al. [1971]) that challenged the ability of farmer-controlled water control and improvement districts (WCIDs) to dominate regional water governance by excluding colonias from district territory. This territorial exclusion denied colonias residents the right to vote for WCID board candidates and, thus, denied residents the political standing to change the district's operation from irrigation to domestic water supply. Drawing on current scholarship in critical legal geography, the article details how emerging legal discourses rescripted narratives about colonias residents’ access to water through debates over the political territoriality of the WCIDs. Moreover, the legal process shifted the terms of debate from voting rights to historical precedent, the market, policy failure, and prospective water rights. The final legal ruling against colonias residents foreclosed any standing they had in regional water governance and shunted them into their current position of passive consumers of dysfunctional public services with limited ability to change their relationship to regional water management institutions.

IMPROVE WATER SAVING AND WATER PRODUCTIVITY BY NEW APPROACH OF FARM MANAGEMENT UNDER SURFACE IRRIGATION

Two field experiments were conducted during summer seasons of 2007 and 2008 at Zankalon Water Research Station, Water Management and Irrigation Systems Research Institute, Egypt. This research aims to study the effect of new approach of farm layout and management under surface irrigation on water saving and yield of corn. Three irrigation and planting treatments were investigated, treatment A used traditional irrigation method (control treatment) with 80 cm width furrows and one row of plants on each ridge with one plant/hill and 22 cm between hills. Treatment B had 80 cm wide furrows with one row planted in the bottom of each furrow with one plant/hill and 22 cm between hills. Treatment C had 160 cm wide furrows with two rows planted in the bottom of each furrow with one plant/hill and 22 cm between hills. Comparisons were based on the growth, yield, yield attributes, water relations, and the net return of the corn crop (cultivar T.W.C310). Comparing to the traditional practice (treatment A) water saving from using treatments B and C were 2467 m3 ha-1 (30.3%) and 4333 m3 ha-1 (53.2%), respectively. Actual evapotranspiration values for treatments A, B and C were 553, 410 and 293 mm respectively. The values of water productivity (kg m-3) were 0.74, 1.13 and 1.73 for A, B and C treatments, respectively. The lowest irrigation cost was observed for method C and the net profit increased by 19% using treatment B and 32% using treatment C. Significant increase in grain yield was achieved, 6% and 9% for the B and C treatments, respectively.

Climate change and international water conflict in Central Asia

We engage in a critical assessment of the neo-malthusian claim that climatic changes can be an important source of international tensions, in the extreme even militarized interstate disputes. The most likely scenario is conflict over water allocation in international catchments shared by poorer, less democratic, and politically less stable countries, governed by weak international water management institutions, and exposed to severe climatic changes. The Syr Darya corresponds quite well to all these characteristics. If the neo-malthusian specter of conflict over water is empirically relevant, we should see signs of this in the Syr Darya. The riparian countries of the Aral Sea basin have experienced international disputes over water allocation ever since the USSR collapsed and, with it, existing water management institutions and funding. The worst such dispute concerns the Syr Darya, one of the two largest rivers in Central Asia. Based on hydrological data and other information we find that the only existing international water management institution in the Syr Darya has failed. Based on a coupled climate, land-ice and rainfall-runoff model for the Syr Darya, we then examine whether, in the absence of an effective international water allocation mechanism, climate change is likely to make existing international tensions over water allocation worse. We find that climate change-induced shifts in river runoff, to which the Uzbek part of the Syr Darya catchment is particularly vulnerable, and which could contribute to a deterioration of already strained Kyrgyz–Uzbek relations, are likely to set in only in the medium to long term. This leaves some time for the riparian countries to set up an effective international framework for water allocation and prevention of climate-induced geohazards. By implication, our findings suggest that a climate change-induced militarized interstate dispute over water resources in Central Asia is unlikely.

Changes to Our Editorial Board

I have several departures from and additions to the Journal’s Editorial Board to report. First, our retiring members are Jose Roesset of Texas A&M University, Jonathan Hren of E. L. Robinson, and Kevin Sutterer of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. All three were Associate Editors who have rendered about a decade of service each to the Journal. Their important contributions will be missed. We have added Declan Phillips of the University of Limerick in Ireland and Andrew Rener of Barton Malow to our Editorial Board as new corresponding editors. Both have deep and broad backgrounds in civil engineering education, and we are glad to have them on the Editorial Board. Two of our Editorial Board members have moved on to new institutions as Deans. Mark Tumeo, formerly a colleague of mine at Cleveland State University, is now Dean of the College of Computing, Engineering, and Construction at the University of North Florida. Debra Larson, formerly of Northern Arizona University, is now the Dean of the College of Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Another Editorial Board member, Arif Anwar, has taken a leave of absence from the University of Southampton and joined the International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is based in their offices in Lahore, Pakistan, and his current title is Senior Researcher—Irrigation. Also, Brock Barry of the United States Military Academy was promoted from corresponding editor to associate editor. Thanks to all past, present, and future contributors to the Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice. Your work has helped to make the Journal excellent, and I am grateful. As you can see, 2011 was a busy year for the Journal and for the Editorial Board.

A remote sensing-based approach for water accounting in the East Rapti River Basin, Nepal

Accurate estimates of evapotranspiration across different land uses are a major challenge in the process of understanding water availability and uses in a river basin. This study demonstrated a remote sensing-based procedure for accurately generating evaporative depletion and runoff in mountainous areas using Landsat ETM+ images combined with standard hydro-meteorological data. The data was used as a key input into the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)’s water accounting procedure to understand how water is now used, and opportunities for improvements in the future. We found a higher annual actual evapotranspiration from the riparian forest than from irrigated agriculture in the East Rapti River basin of Nepal. Another important finding of our study is that simple rainfall surplus can be a good predictor of river flow at an ungagged site of the East Rapti River basin. The water accounting analysis revealed that there is the potential for further development of water resources in the East Rapti River basin as only 59% of the total available water is depleted. A critical analysis of social and ecological flow requirements downstream is necessary before any development of water resources upstream. This study successfully demonstrated that the key inputs required for evaluating and monitoring the overall water resources conditions in a mountainous river basin can be computed from satellite data with a minimal support from ground information.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hjs.v7i9.5785 Himalayan Journal of Sciences Vol.7 Issue 9 2011 pp.15-30

Exploring the Value of Professional Body Accreditation for Masters Programmes

Masters programmes face a range of pressures including the drive for increased numbers, for widening participation and for increasingly vocational approaches. Maintaining quality and consistency of knowledge and skill sets between programmes is becoming difficult. This paper critically appraises the value of accreditation of a UK Masters programme by a professional body; the Chartered Institution of Water and Environment Management (CIWEM). Accreditation is an external audit of programme and module content, delivery and facilities. Questionnaires to students, graduates, employers and programme managers indicate that accreditation encourages increased reflective practices and harmonizes the skill sets of the programmes with workplace drivers.

Integrated rainwater management strategies in the Blue Nile Basin of the Ethiopian highlands

This paper describes one component of the research that International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and partners are undertaking as part of the challenge program on water and food (CPWF) Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC). The objective of the NBDC is to increase understanding of how to plan successful rainwater management strategies (RMS) and identify how these can be effectively implemented in the Ethiopian highlands of the Blue Nile Basin. The project focuses on integrated rainwater management strategies – technologies, institutions and policies but the work described in this paper relates solely to the biophysical components of the study. Three districts, Jeldu, Fogera and Diga, have been identified for the study. These were selected because they represent farming systems that are common in the Ethiopian Highlands. Within each, nested sites have been identified for learning and research at a variety of physical scales. In this paper we describe the “action research catchments” that have been identified in the three districts. These catchments are small representative catchments that are to be monitored to provide insights into hydrological processes and water fluxes at different scales. The objective of this monitoring is to provide baseline data for evaluating RMS, and water-use and water productivity in different landscape components. The baseline status of the three study sites and critical constraints for adoption of integrated RMS are included in this paper. The paper also provides a justification for the research being conducted in Ethiopia and describes common practices and lessons learned from experience in India. Differences in the socio-economic and biophysical context mean that care is needed in transferring approaches between countries. Nevertheless, it is believed that knowledge gained from the extensive Indian experience can usefully inform practices in Ethiopia. Key words: Blue Nile Basin, Diga District, Ethiopian highlands, Fogera District, Jeldu District, rainwater management, watershed development program.

Dispatches

Dispatches

Water policy development and governance in the Caribbean: an overview of regional progress

Water management institutions and arrangements in many Caribbean states have not, until recently, altered substantially for some sixty years with the current arrangements reflecting the predominant governance paradigm of a transitional colonial era. This is most obvious in the continuance of a sectoral approach to what might be referred to as the business of government. This, however, is beginning to change such that the water sector in the Caribbean region exhibits varying stages of institutional re-ordering as it seeks to respond to challenges of increasing demand on and for water. This paper reviews the institutional status of water management and water policy developments in the Caribbean through examples from fifteen English-speaking Caribbean states. The trends and influences that are contributing to policy change and governance responses are examined and critiqued, in order to explore where and what potential tensions the re-ordering might give rise to.

Climate change impacts on water for irrigating paddy rice in South Korea

AbstractThe spatial and temporal impacts of climate change on paddy irrigation water demands in South Korea have been modelled and mapped. The outputs from a general circulation model (HadCM3) for two selected scenarios (A2, B2) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (IPCC SRES) and for two time periods (2050s and 2080s) have been downscaled and applied to a baseline climatology (1961–1990) developed by the International Water Management Institute. A GIS was used to map spatial changes in irrigation water requirements.The simulations showed that although future average rainfall is expected to increase substantially (25–53%), average effective rainfall will only increase slightly (2–8%), leading to only slight reductions in paddy irrigation requirements (−1 to −8%). Assuming cropping patterns and farming practices remain unchanged, total volumetric irrigation water demand decreases by 4–10%. However, the spatial variations are substantial.Combining these results with previously forecast increases in the available water resources under the SRES A2 scenario, the ratio between available water resources and volumetric irrigation demand would increase significantly. However, most of the increased rainfall falls after the peak demand period. Potential adaptation strategies such as constructing more storage reservoirs can be considered where water shortages still occur. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Water Conflicts among Different User Groups in South Bali, Indonesia

The overexploitation of water resources in the region of South Bali, near one of the island’s tourist centres, is exemplified by a subak in Sanur at the tail end of an irrigation system. Tensions between the social institutions for local water management and powerful, state-backed stakeholders in water distribution from the river Ayung have caused rural–urban water conflicts for the last 10–15 years. The case presented here illustrates how water shortages are ascribed to the dominance of the tourism industry, private companies selling bottled drinking water and regional water delivery services, all of which peasants hold responsible for crop failure in dry years. I focus on the emic perspective of the subak members on water scarcity caused by a lack of coordination between privatized and previously centralized water resource management based on economic priorities for the tourism sector and urban regions and water use for agriculture.

Book review: Taming the Anarchy: Groundwater Governance in South Asia, by Tushaar Shah (RFF Press, 2008)

Tushaar Shah—a development economist and senior fellow at the International Water Management Institute, IWMI—has written an excellent and timely book (Shah 2008). In stylish and well-argued prose, he deconstructs the dominant view of irrigation and groundwater management through a close examination of their status and recent history in South Asia, and in particular in his native India. (IWMI staff continue to develop the line of research: e.g. Mukherji et al. (2009) appear to have taken some of these ideas forward for the Indo-Gangetic and the Yellow River basins.) From the hydrogeologist’s viewpoint “Taming the Anarchy” is interesting especially because Shah draws on and integrates ideas from different disciplines, but particularly the socio-economic sphere, to enlighten the debate. He proposes that the orthodox technocratic view must be leavened with an understanding of the welfare outcomes produced by groundwater irrigation and the threats to those outcomes that would be produced if the resource were to fail. He further postulates that water-sector professionals and political leaders must re-cast their view of what is feasible in managing that resource, by taking a wider view of the socio-economic factors that currently stymie most efforts to improve it. A telling example that he provides is the cooption of political leaders in hard-rock areas of India by the strong “vote bank” of the smallholder farming community, so that even where cheap electricity for pumping is fuelling the race to the bottom of these lowyielding aquifers (a race that is everywhere recognised as unsustainable), elected leaders continue to provide and to promise subsidised electricity rates for irrigation. In Shah’s view, South Asian irrigation is peculiar in that the groundwater pumping boom is driven not so much by lack of water as by lack of farmland. The increasing rural population densities push farmers to intensify production and produce high value crops, and this requires water. The advent of modern pumps and the consequent explosion in the number of small groundwater abstractions are direct results. Shah characterises the informal and uncontrolled nature of the modern irrigation economies of South Asia by the phrase “atomistic individualism”. This is contrasted with the orthodox view of national and international agencies, which assume that groundwater abstractions can be controlled by a centralised authority that formally manages water distribution rather in the way that the large-scale surface-irrigation projects of the colonial era were conceived. For Shah, “taming the anarchy” in the manner that might be envisaged by a hydrogeologist will only be possible over several decades. In the interim, he proposes that South Asia must chart an innovative course that recognises the variability in the irrigation economies that have developed in response to different hydrological settings. This is the only way to provide a framework for the exploitation of the region’s aquifers that will at least avoid the worst environmental excesses and at the same time prevent a collapse of the hundreds of millions of dependent farming livelihoods. Shah notes that “Governing an informal economy is a contradiction in terms” (p. 203), and that there is no possibility that the “atomistic” nature of South Asian irrigation will be formalised soon. He contends correctly that there is little connection between the reality of local water economies and reforms to policy and regulation borne out of the international discourse on integrated water-resources management (see, for example, the Global Water Partnership website – GWP 2008). Given the huge numbers of abstractors involved, there is no realistic way for centralised controls to be implemented and policed. Indirect management strategies must therefore be used, which impact the “environment of conduct” (e.g. electricity prices) rather than the conduct itself (water pumping). (In a recent paper on effective and accountable public authority in poor countries, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS 2010) similarly concludes that “instead of viewing informal arrangements as a major part of the governance problem, they could also be part of the solution”.) Received: 20 September 2010 /Accepted: 16 November 2010 Published online: 4 January 2011

Irrigated agriculture facing new challenges

Irrigated agriculture covers 18% of cropped areas and produces 40% of world food. Its productivity per hectare is higher than rain-fed agriculture, but constraints are also more demanding: high investment, important running and maintenance costs, intensive cropping systems tightly dependent upon commercial chains, collective management often necessary, sharing water with other users. This special issue gives a non-exhaustive view of new irrigation problematics, current trends, opportunities, challenges and potential problems. Based on case studies in Europe, Asia, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, three main issues are discussed: (i) technical innovation and improvement of irrigation performance; (ii) new land and water management institutions; and (iii) tensions surrounding irrigation issues inside territories.

A behavioural model for quantifying flood warning effectiveness

The extent of losses avoided as a result of a warning is a key measure of warning system effectiveness. Tools to estimate the impact of warnings on losses are limited to postflood analysis or estimates of potential rather than actual damages. This paper illustrates a method for the appraisal of actual damages when a flood warning is issued. The approach combines social science with engineering approaches to the problem of flood warning effectiveness. From a starting point of estimating potential damages by means of depth-damage curves, the method allows the identification of damage reduction by modelling how people respond to the warning. The model is in the form of an event tree representing human behavioural steps in the flood warning process. Two Australian case studies show how to apply the developed methodology. The results from these cases demonstrate the utility of the event-tree model that also allows the identification of weak links in the warning chain. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Flood Risk Management © 2011 The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.

Empirical assessment of water management institutions in northern China

We examine the development of irrigation management in northern China using data from village and household panels. During the past decade, reform-oriented institutions, such as water user associations and contracting, have largely replaced the traditional institution of collective management in village-level irrigation systems. A feature unique to China is that water user associations and contractors are provided with monetary incentives to save water. Water user associations have not yet achieved the broad-based participation of farmers that some advocates consider as a primary goal for forming the associations. Many village leaders serve also as the leaders of water user associations, thus possibly reducing opportunities for receiving operational input and policy direction from farmers. However, we observe improved performance of irrigation systems managed by water user associations, relative to collective management, in terms of maintenance expenditures, the timeliness of water deliveries, and the rates of fee collection. Performance has improved also in systems managed by contractors, although not as substantially as in the case of water user associations.