Diagnosis and Improvement of the Collective Irrigation and Drainage Services in Water Users’ Associations of Calabria (Southern Italy)

Abstract

There is a need of diagnostic processes of collective irrigation and drainage services in southern Italy, helping to identify the weak points of management and to suggest improving actions. To these aims, a comprehensive analysis of the collective services in the water users’ associations (WUAs) operating in Calabria has been carried out, covering the infrastructural, organization and management aspects. The investigation has shown important shortcomings: (i) the old and small irrigation systems need renovation; (ii) the drainage service would benefit from a continuous and planned maintenance activity of the hydraulic network; (iii) a rational reorganization of WUA human resources together with education activities is suggested. Management of WUAs (affected by low service levels and economic imbalance) needs improvement in procedures of water distribution (from rotational scheduling to on‐demand delivery) and water charging (with taxation on actual water consumption instead of on irrigable area), together with reduction of fee evasion and integration of profits (e.g. through sale of hydroelectric energy by small turbines installed in the irrigation networks). This survey proposes a methodological framework which could be a technical and scientific support broadened to all aspects influencing irrigation and drainage activities of collective agencies and transferable to other rural contexts. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Analyzing the Performances of Water User Associations to Increase the Irrigation Sustainability: An Application of Multivariate Statistics to a Case Study in Italy

“…In this regard, we recall the importance of irrigated agriculture within the local economy and the peculiarity of the irrigation sector (in terms of infrastructural and management characteristics of the WUAs) among the regions of Southern Italy [32]. Compared to the other southern regions (Campania, Apulia, and Sicily) where the collective irrigation service is more efficient and loyalizes the associated farmers, the WUAs in Calabria suffer from heavy infrastructural, organization, and management problems since their establishment, which make the collective service unsustainable for profitable and environmentally sound irrigated agriculture [4,10]. Due to these problems, the agriculture of Calabria is more retarded compared to the other regions of Northern and Southern Italy since the cultivated areas are fragmented in many farms, most of which are even managed using familiar practices and business models.…”

“…Often the performance of the collective irrigation service is poor (e.g., [8][9][10]), and thus shows low technical and financial sustainability. With regard to the technical management, the irrigation service shows low equity and continuity of water distribution, and the water amounts delivered to farms are often not sufficient for the crop irrigation requirements [11].…”

“…Moreover, often the farm areas that are effectively irrigated are much smaller compared to the areas equipped with irrigation networks (e.g., [10]). From the financial point of view, the WUAs are not able to fully cover the management costs.…”

Application of Benchmarking and Principal Component Analysis in Measuring Performance of Public Irrigation Schemes in Kenya

“…WDIA values are relatively lower compared to the 22,029.43 m 3 /ha, 16,026.37 m 3 /ha, 11,289.10 m 3 /ha, and 9795.96 m 3 /ha obtained in MARIIS, Divisoria, Lucban and Garab SWIPs, respectively, in the Cagayan river basin, Philippines [23]. In southern Italy, high WDIA values ranging between 6500-14,900 m 3 /ha were reported by the Water Users' Association (WUA's) of Calabria [33]. WDIA values of 5578 m 3 /ha were obtained in sprinkler irrigation systems and 1084 m 3 /ha in drip irrigation systems in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain [17].…”

Equivalent Small Hydro Power: A Simple Method to Evaluate Energy Production by Small Turbines in Collective Irrigation Systems

“…In Calabria (Southern Italy) collective irrigation is mainly managed by water user associations (WUAs), which operate several water networks [24][25][26]. Under a morphological and hydrological point of view, Calabria shows many suitable sites (water bodies at high altitude with significant supplied water volumes) for SHP plant installation in the existing collective irrigation systems [27].…”