Cost sharing and sustainability of Pongsak Muang Fai irrigation system

Abstract

The centuries-old, self-organizing Muang Fai community irrigation institution in northern Thailand has high potential in illustrating exemplary practices in irrigation cost sharing. This paper examines the cost sharing structure of the Pongsak Muang Fai Irrigation System in Mae Hong Son Province and its relationship with the system water management and sustainability. Results show that this primitive and high cost system accepts costs of the weir, the entire length of main ditch, not only the individually related ditch sections, and the management as common costs that should be equally shared so that it can gather sizeable membership to support the system. The capacity of this small scale run-of-the-river irrigation system with no river flow limitation is a simple summation of all determined farm intake capacities. The maintenance cost of the system every year depends on how much water should be diverted and conveyed, hence the use of "relative" scale of each farm intake capacity as the basis for sharing cost in the wet season paddy farming. Such structure is directly related to the water management under which every intake shall be served with continuous supply without permitting mid-canal water check-up and the members prefer to take collective action to keep enough water supply without leaving any room for suspicion of unfair water distribution. The direct relationship makes the members understand the purpose of payment and be willing to share the costs which T. Ounvichit ( ) Planning Division, Royal are transparently estimated in easily understood terms and clearly de-aggregated into categories.

Basic Principles for Sustainable Participatory Irrigation Management

“…Farming areas in a Pongsak Muang Fai irrigation system are about 15 ha, comprising 24 ownerships plots; this indicates a small-scale irrigation system. The members share the cost based on farm intakes, and transparency in cost distribution supports the sustainability of the system 14 . For the realization of sustainable PIM, it is essential to collect more case studies in the small-scale irrigation systems mentioned by Ounvichit et al In addition, it is necessary to analyze the management of large-scale irrigation projects and compare them with small-scale irrigation projects, to summarize problems in each project, and to propose solutions.…”

“…With regard to PIM, there have been case studies on irrigation management by WUA 15,17,19 . However, little research on evaluation of sustainability has been published 14,22 . The main reason is that factors for sustainable management have not been clear.…”

Analysis of water management structures of an Integrated Water User Group in the Chao Phraya Delta, Thailand

“…Some cases of sustainably managed traditional irrigation systems are reported (Surarerks 1986;Ounvichit et al 2006), and successful cases of a modern and large scale irrigation projects under the Land Improvement Law of Japan are also seen Tanaka and Sato 2003). However, after tackling the problems in the developing countries the difficulties in establishing and managing farmers' Water User Organizations (WUOs) are widely recognized (Groenfeldt and Svendsen 2000).…”

Comparative analysis of management of three water users’ organizations: successful cases in the Chao Phraya Delta, Thailand

“…Muang Fai (MF), a traditional farmers' irrigation organization in Northern Thailand, is reported as a WUO that has been sustainable over the long term. There have been numerous reports on MF (Surarerks 1986(Surarerks , 1991Ounvichit et al 2006), but research or reports on the present state of WUOs in modern large-scale projects in Thailand are limited. The real problems of WUOs in Thailand are, therefore, not entirely clear.…”