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Proceedings of National Irrigation Seminar

Challenges and Opportunities in Irrigation
Development for Green Revolution
12-13 Ashar, 2068 (24-25 May, 2013)

©2013 Department of Irrigation

Editorial Team
Er. Bashu Dev Lohanee
Er. Basudev Timilsina
Er. Ezee G.C
Er. Mukesh Pathak
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 Seminar Organizing Committee

Advisors

o Mr. Uma Kant Jha, Hon. Minister, Ministry of Irrigation

o Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, Ministry of Irrigation

Chairman

o Mr. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Director General, Department of Irrigation

Workshop Coordinator

o Mr. Uttam Raj Timilsina, DDG, DOI

Master of Ceremony

o Mr. Basudev Timilsina, SDE, DOI

Committee Members

o Mr. Bashu Dev Lohanee, Chief, SMTP

o Mr. Mohan Prasad Sangraula, SDE, DOI
o Mr. Hari Ram Shrestha, SDE, DOI
o Mr. Andy Prakash Bhatt, SDHG, DOI
o Mr. Kishor Kumar Bhattarai, Coordinator, NITP
o Mr. Aashish Bhadra Khanal, SDE, DOI
o Mr. Min Raj Dhakal, SDE, DOI
o Mr. Basudev Timilsina, SDE, DOI
o Mr. Tikaram Baral, SDE, DOI
o Ms. Ezee G.C, Engineer, DOI

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Foreword
Irrigation plays vital role in increasing agriculture production and productivity with the
intensification and diversification in agriculture. Irrigation is one of the key factors making the
country self-sufficient in food grain production and contributes greatly towards agriculture
GDP (Gross Domestic Production). Irrigation contributes for alleviating rural poverty in the
country. It materialized that irrigation technologies are developing and all types of farmers
including small and medium are involved more in the production process which enhanced
their household food security in particular and national food security in general. Keeping in
mind to this fact, the Department of Irrigation is constantly working in irrigation development
and management since its establishment in 2009 B.S.

Irrigation systems developed in the past were particularly for protecting the paddy crop in
drought with supplementary irrigation. The challenge ahead is to provide year round irrigation
in the existing irrigation systems as well as in the new development. Efficiency improvement
with management input and canal/structure improvement, conjunctive use of surface and
ground water, storage projects from small single purpose to large multipurpose projects and
diversion projects are the major way outs for achieving it. Irrigation is facing the impact of
climate change, which has to be taken into account to mitigate or adopt accordingly. Shallow
tubewell and non-conventional irrigation technology can contribute a lot to the disadvantaged
and marginal farmers. To explore the roadmap of the said challenges and opportunities for the
development and management of irrigation sector in the changed context, DOI is organizing a
national level irrigation seminar each year from last few years. In continuation to it, National
Irrigation seminar with theme "Challenges and Opportunities in Irrigation Development
for Green Revolution" was organized on 2070/2/10-11 (24-25 May, 2013) to bring national
level stakeholders from government and non-government sectors in one forum to discuss
the various issues of irrigation. This proceeding is a collection of findings of the seminar and
hope that it will be helpful in fulfilling the future need for planning irrigation development and
management.

On behalf of Department of Irrigation, I would like to thank INPIM-Nepal and IWMI-Nepal for
being the co-organizer in hosting the seminar. I would like to thank Consolidated Management
Services P. Ltd., Fulbright Consultancy P. Ltd., Sheladia-Multi Disciplinary P. Ltd and Silt Consult
P. Ltd. for their support. My special thanks goes to Hon. Minister Mr. Uma Kanta Jha, Ministry
of Irrigation for his support and guidance for overall irrigation development and management.
I am very much thankful to Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, Ministry of Irrigation for his
constant encouragement and support in conducting the seminar. Paper presenters are well
acknowledged for their valuable technical papers and presentation. I am equally thankful to
the participants for the active participation and lively discussions. I would like to thank Er.
Uttam Raj Timilsina, DDG, DOI and the members of seminar organizing team for their laborious
work in organizing the successful seminar. Lastly, I would like to extend my appreciation to all
who were directly or indirectly involved to make this seminar successful.

Shiva Kumar Sharma

Director General
Department of Irrigation
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Contents

Foreword

Acronyms

1. Introduc on 1

1.1. Background 1

1.2. Ra onale of Workshop 2

1.3. Seminar Objec ves 2

1.4. Content of the Seminar 3

1.5. Par cipants 5

2. Proceeding 6

2.1. Registra on and Opening session 6

2.2. Session I: Policy and Strategy- Irriga on 7

2.2.1. Applica on of MASSCOTE Tool for Enhancing Water

Produc vity in Nepal through Irriga on Moderniza on 7

2.2.2. Evalua on of Canal Design Methods for Sediment Transport

in Sunsari Morang Irriga on Project 8

2.2.3. Assessment of climate change impacts on water balances

and crop yields in Koshi Basin 8

2.2.4. Irriga on Moderniza on for Water Produc vity and Crop Produc on:
Improved Food Security for Small Farmers Through Pond Irriga on 8

2.2.5. Discussion session 8

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 2.3. Session II: Economics of Irrigated Agriculture 9

2.3.1. Micro Irriga on for Rural Development in Nepal (A Case

study of Micro Irriga on Pilo ng under IWRMP) 9

2.3.2. Economics of Irrigated Crops: Major Indicator for

Moderniza on and Commercializa on 10

2.3.3. IWRM: Status in some of the river basins in Asia 10

2.4. Session III: Governance in Irriga on 11

2.4.1. Governance through internal audi ng in Irriga on and Agriculture 11

2.4.2. Rethinking Governance framework in irriga on service 11

2.4.3. Small Scale Irriga on systems in the context of Irriga on Policy of Nepal 12

2.5. Session IV: Ground water Irriga on in Nepal 13

2.5.1. Analy cal Status of Groundwater Irriga on in Nepal 13

2.5.2. Present Scenario of Groundwater Usages and Role of GWRDB in its

management 13

Closing Session 16

3. Conclusion and Recommenda ons 18

3.1 Highlights of the technical sessions 18

3.2. Recommenda ons 20

3.3. Iden fied themes for next workshop/seminar 21

Annexs -1 : Program Schedule

Annexs -2 : Par cipant List

Annexs -3 : Full Papers

Annexs -4 : Photos of Workshop

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ACRONYMS

CC Climate Change

CED Central for Empowerment Development

DAG Disadvantaged Group

DG Director General

DHM Department of Hydrology and Metrology

DOCSET Design of Canal for Sediment Transport

DOI Department of Irriga on

DTW Deep Tube Well

DWIDP Department of Water induced Hazard Preven on

ED Execu ve Director

ER. Engineer

ET Evapotranspira on

FAO Food and Agriculture Organiza on

GCM Global Climate Model

GWDB Ground Water Development Board

GWP Global Water Partnership

HH Household

IFAD Interna onal Fund for Agricultural Development

INPIM/Nepal Interna onal Network for Par cipatory Irriga on Management/Nepal

IWMI/Nepal Interna onal Water Management Ins tute/Nepal

IWRM Integrated Water Resources Management

IWRMP Irriga on and Water Resources Management Project

LILI Local Infrastructure for Livelihood Improvement

MASSCOTE Mapping System and Services for Canal Opera on Techniques

MCM Million Cubic Meter

MLD Million Litre per Day

MOF Ministry of Forestry

MoI Ministry of Irriga on

NASC Nepal Administra ve Staff College

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NIS Narayani Irriga on System

SDE Senior Divisional Engineer

SES Social Ecological System

SMIP Sunsari Morang Irriga on Project

SMTP System Management and Training Program

SRES Special Report on Emissions Scenarios

SSIS Small Scale Irriga on systems

STW Shallow Tubewell

SWAT Soil and Water Assessment Tool

UN United Na on

WECS Water and Energy Commission Secretariat

WUA Water User’s Associa on

WUPAP Western Upland Poverty Allevia on Project

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1. Introduction
1.1. Background
Department of Irrigation (DoI) has been organizing National irrigation seminar every year
since 2007 A.D. The aim of the workshop is to review the achievements and explore future
opportunities and challenges for the development of Irrigation sector. Senior Level officials
from Ministry of Irrigation and its line agencies participate in the workshop. Seventh edition
of the National seminar was held on 10-11 Jestha, 2070 at Dhulikhel Resort, Dhulikhel.
It was jointly organized by Department of Irrigation (DoI), International Network for
Participatory Irrigation Management /Nepal (INPIM/Nepal) and International Water
Management Institute– Nepal (IWMI-Nepal). Twelve technical papers were presented
in four different subthemes. The workshop was attended by more than 120 experts and
intellectuals from Ministry of Irrigation and Water sector

1.2. Rationale of Workshop

Nepal is rich in water resources. There are more than 6000 rivers in the country and drainage
density is about 0.3 km/km2. Rivers in Nepal can be classified into three broad groups on
the basis of their origin. The first group of rivers is snow fed-types major rivers: the Koshi,
Gandaki, Karnali, and Mahakali. The second group of rivers Bagmati, Kamala, Rapti,
Mechi, Kankai, and Babai rivers are medium rivers, originates in the middle mountains
and hilly regions. Their flow regimes are affected by both monsoon precipitation and
groundwater. The third group of rivers originates in Siwalik zone Like Tinau, Banganga,
Tilawe, Sirsia, Manusmara, Hardinath, Sunsari and other smaller rivers. All together about
225 BCM water flows away from the Country annually. In addition, there is good potential
of groundwater Resources in the terai. Majority of Nepal’s present population depends on
agriculture for their subsistence but still only 32 % of the total irrigated land is facilitated
with year round irrigation (Irrigation year Book, 2067). Thus winter crops depends solely
on rainfall for irrigation and variability of precipitation in quantity and space often creates
difficulties in cultivating these lands and could result in probable food scarcity for the
population. Thus concept of the interbasin water transfer was simulated as an alternative
to balance the non uniform temporal and spatial distribution of water resources and water
demands year round. Likewise, where conventional surface Irrigation schemes are not
feasible due to various reasons, role of micro irrigation system is felt vital.

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While irrigation plays an important role in earning livelihood, trends in its development faces
lots of issues and challenges like policy and strategic, land acquisition, labour shortage,
water management, environment and climate change , human resource management. So
far efficiency of the systems monitored do not have higher than 35 %, thus rehabilitation
and modernization of irrigation system at each level is felt necessary. It is observed that
the production and productivity of irrigated land in the country is lower as compared to
other countries. Similarly, sustainability of the irrigation system depends on the ability of
WUA to take over the responsibility of the system, thus capacity building through human
resources development (training, education and extension) for WUA cannot be neglected.
In addition, to address the climate change, assessment of effect and adaptive measures
is now the concern for agriculture development. Taking above mentioned concern into
consideration, Irrigation National Seminar, 2070 was formulated to review and assess the
future roadmap of DoI activities.

1.3. Seminar Objectives

The overall objective of the seminar was to review the achievements and assess the
opportunities and challenges in irrigation development for Green revolution. In this context,
the specific objectives of the seminar were to:
• Assessment of the modernization of the irrigation system
• Comprehensive assessment of irrigated agriculture economics
• Governance issues for development and sustainability in irrigation sector
• Assessment of Groundwater resources for irrigated agriculture
• Share past experience and access the way forward.
1.4. Content of the Seminar
“Challenges and Opportunities in Irrigation Development for Green Revolution " was the
theme of the workshop. It was divided into four subthemes to meet the objectives that
were set. Subthemes were:
1. Irrigation Modernization for Water Productivity and Crop Production
2. Economics of Irrigated Agriculture
3. Governance in Irrigation
4. Groundwater Irrigation in Nepal
Following twelve technical papers were presented that focused in the above mentioned
subthemes.

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Agenda of the program is attached in Annex 1.

S.no Paper Title Authors

Session I : Irriga on Moderniza on for Water Produc vity and Crop Produc on

1 Applica on of MASSCOTE Tool for Enhancing Water Produc vity in Suman Sijapa
Nepal through Irriga on Moderniza on

2 Design of Irriga on Canals for Sediment Transport Krishna P. Paudel

A Case Study of Sunsari Morang Irriga on Project

3 Applica on of the SWAT Model to a assess climate change impacts on Pabitra Gurung,
water balances and crop yields in the West Se River Basin Luna Bhata
Saroj Karki

4 Improved food security and income for small farmers through pond Susan Shakya
irriga on

Session II : Economics of Irrigated Agriculture

5 Micro Irriga on for Rural Development in Nepal Krishna Bahadur Kunwar,

(A case study of Micro-Irriga on Pilo ng under IWRMP) Mr.Bashu Dev Lohanee,
Dr.Kishor Bha arai

6 Economics of Irrigated Crops: Major Indicator for moderniza on and Tulasi Gautam
Commercializa on of Irrigated Agriculture

7 IWRM: Status in some of the river basins in Asia Ashish Bhadra Khanal

Session III: Governance in Irriga on

8 Governance through Internal Audi ng in Irriga on and Agriculture Janak Raj Gautam

9 Small Scale Irriga on Systems in the context of Irriga on Policy of Prachanda Pradhan
Nepal

10 Rethinking Governance Framework in Irriga on Service Laxman Neupane

Session IV : Groundwater Irriga on in Nepal

11 Analy cal Status of Groundwater Irriga on in Nepal Sagar Kumar Rai

12 Present Scenario of Groundwater Usages and Role of GWRDB in Nir Shakya

Development as well as Management of Groundwater Resources Surendra Raj Shrestha

1.5. Participants

Irrigation experts and intellectuals from different organizations participated in the seminar.
They were selected on the basis of the following categories:

• Paper contributors

• Special invitees

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 • Official representation from Ministry of Irrigation (MoI)

• Official representation from Department of Irrigation

• Official representation from Department of Water Induced Disaster and

Prevention (DWIDP)

• Official representation from IWMI-Nepal

• Official representation from INPIM-Nepal

• Official representation from Auditor General

• Consulting firms

• Seminar Management Committee

List of Participant is attached in Annex 2.

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2. Proceeding
2.1. Registration and Opening session

The seminar was formally inaugurated by Chief Guest Mr. Uma Kant Jha, Hon. Minister,
Ministry of Irrigation (MOI) on 24th May, 2013 morning at Dhulikhel Lodge Resort,
Dhulikhel by irrigating a plant. Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, MOI, Mr. Bishwa
Prakash Pandit, Secretary, WECS, Mr. Prakash Paudel, DG, DWIDP, Mr. Pramod Raj
Sharma, ED, GWDB, Mr. Suman Sijapati, INPIM President were the special guest. Mr.
Shiv Kumar Sharma, Director General, DOI chaired the opening session. Mr. Uttam Raj
Timilsina, DDG, DOI was the seminar coordinator and Mr. Basudev Timilsina, SDE, DOI
was the Master of Ceremony. One hundred and fifty persons participated in the program
from Ministry of Irrigation, different government agencies, different international and
national agencies and freelancer water resource experts.

Seminar Coordinator Mr. Uttam Raj Timilsina, DDG, DOI welcomed the participants and
paper presenters. He briefly highlighted the needs of this seminar in the present context. Mr.
Timilsina stressed on the importance of the workshop’s theme for increasing production and
productivity. Mr. Timilsina highlighted that the workshop participants would deliberate
on their respective roles, scope, possibilities and challenges towards effective Irrigation
Development for Green Revolution.

Mr. Basu Dev Lohanee, Chief, SMTP, DOI in brief presented the design and content of
the seminar. He presented the different activities, the overview of the session structures
and their objectives, content, outputs, methodologies, and program schedules, and briefly
introduced the resource persons and guests.

Mr. Pramod Raj Sharma, ED, GWDB highlighted on the status and uses of groundwater in
the Country. He also highlighted the role of Ground Water Development Board in ground
water development and management and associated constraints behind it.

Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, MOI focused on the Irrigation vision and mission for
the future. He also stressed on the Irrigation governance Issues and professional ethics in
providing service to the people.

Chief Guest Mr. Uma Kant Jha, Hon. Minister, Ministry of Irrigation, Energy and Science
Technology and Environment highlighted on the status of irrigation development in

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Nepal. He focused his speech on the irrigation development in country and challenges and
constraints faced within. He extended his good wishes for the active participation in all
sessions for fruitful outcomes.

Finally, Chairperson Mr. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Director General of Department of Irrigation
welcomed all the participants in the seminar. He stressed in different dimensions of
irrigation development in country. He said launching of mega projects like interbasin water
transfer to prioritizing small scale micro irrigation has been the working modalities of the
Department of Irrigation for providing Year Round Irrigation services. He added that these
two days spend in vigorous discussions in the workshop will bring some fruitful outcomes
for DOI working strategies.

2.2. Session I: Policy and Strategy- Irrigation

This session was chaired by Mr. Kamal Prasad Regmi, Joint secretary, Ministry of Irrigation
and Rapporteur for this session was Mr. Min Raj Dhakal, SDE, DoI. Four Papers were
presented in the session. Sub-theme of this session was Irrigation Modernization for
Water Productivity and Crop Production. The first paper highlighted on Application
of MASSCOTE Tool for Enhancing Water Productivity in Nepal through Irrigation
Modernization, second paper described the Evaluation of Canal Design Methods for
Sediment Transport in Sunsari Morang Irrigation Project. The third paper was focused on
Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Water Balances and Crop Yields in Koshi Basin
and the fourth paper was emphasized on Irrigation Modernization for Water Productivity and
Crop Production for Improved Food Security for Small Farmers through Pond Irrigation.

2.2.1. Application of MASSCOTE Tool for Enhancing Water Productivity in Nepal

through Irrigation Modernization

Mr. Suman Sijapati, Chairman of INPIM /Nepal, presented first paper of the Session I
on Application of MASSCOTE (Mapping System and Services for Canal Operation
Techniques) which is one of the tools developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) used for developing irrigation modernization plans. It is a step-wise
procedure for auditing performance of irrigation management by analyzing and evaluating
the different elements of an irrigation system and develops a modernization plan consisting
of physical, institutional and managerial innovations to improve water delivery services to
all users and cost effectiveness of operation and management.

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Mr. Sijapati started with highlights on the myth about MASSCOTE and described the
elements of MASSCOTE such as service oriented management, cost effectiveness and
merit of MASSCOTE. Mr. Sijapati presented pictorial view of MASSCOTE workshop
carried out in Nepal in Sunsari Morang Irrigation System and Narayani Irrigation System
in 2003. He also shared a brief overview of the international practices of MASSCOTE.

2.2.2. Evaluation of Canal Design Methods for Sediment Transport in Sunsari

Morang Irrigation Project

Dr. Krishna Prasad Paudel, Irrigation Expert and Director of CMS Nepal, presented his
paper on Evaluation of Canal Design Methods for Sediment Transport in Sunsari Morang
Irrigation Project. Dr. Paudel started with methods adopted in canal design practice in
Nepal and the limitation of each method. In practice, there is no consistency in the design
approaches. The approaches have been found to vary from canal to canal even within the
same irrigation scheme.

He tried to illustrate with canal system design of Sunsari Morang Irrigation Project where
during earlier phases (stage I and II) of modernization, Lacey’s regime method (Method
I) was used while later on (stage III) the tractive force method with energy concept for
preventing deposition was used (Method II). However, in the absence of clear and defined
guidelines for the design, different approaches have been used. Thus design of the canal
for sediment transport should be an integrated approach of hydraulic calculations and
recommended to use rational canal design approach that takes into account of Holistic
design/planning concept, prediction of roughness, adaption of sediment transport predictors,
integration of water management plans and sediment management.

2.2.3. Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Water Balances and Crop Yields
in Koshi Basin

Mr. Pabitra Gurung, a Research Officer, International Water Management Institute (IWMI),
Nepal, gave a presentation on Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Water Balances
and Crop Yields in Koshi Basin based on his model study.

Mr. Gurung started with saying that Himalayan region is considered sensitive to climate
change (CC), and developing countries, such as Nepal, are more vulnerable to CC because
they have limited capacity to adapt to it. In Between 1977-2000, the maximum temperature

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of Nepal increased by 0.06°C per year. Most of the agriculture land in the hills and middle
mountains depends on the direct rainfall and only few lands have irrigation access from
local streams. Then, he highlighted the central idea of this paper as to evaluate the impact
of climate change on the soil water balance in the agricultural lands and subsequently to
measure change in the yields of cereal crops.

He described the model (SWAT Model) used by him to evaluate the impact of climate
change on water balance and crop yield and demonstrated the result given by the model.

Finally he highlighted his conclusion of the study as:

Under Current Climate: Declining trends of annual actual ET and crop yields

Under Future Climate: Precipitation will decrease on the summer crops fields except on the
maize; and will increase on the winter crops, Actual ET will increase for all crops except in
millet under future climate projection, Summer crop yields will decrease and winter crop
yields will increase.

2.2.4. Irrigation Modernization for Water Productivity and Crop Production:

Improved Food Security for Small Farmers Through Pond Irrigation

The last paper of this session was presented by Mr. Susan Shakya, a Research Officer of
LILI, Helvetas, Nepal. Mr. Shakya described the use and importance of Pond irrigation for
food security. He described the main features of pond irrigation system used in Nepal. He
highlighted that the net income from pond irrigation system is more than that from canal
irrigation system.

He added that it is very simple technique and more suitable for Disadvantage Group (DAG)
of hilly areas of Nepal. Mr. Shakya concluded his presentation by highlighting the main
factors which has made pond irrigation system sustainable.

2.2.5. Discussion session

After presentations, the chairperson opened the floor for discussion and comments. Irrigation
Expert, Mr. Suman Sijapati raised the issue about consideration of change in sediment
rate according to change in flow in the canal of SMIP. Similarly, S.D.E. Ashish Bhadra
Khanal raised the query about the establishment of "Department of Water Management"
to address the management issues of the System. Similarly, Mr. Kalanidhi Paudel, Senior
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Legal Officer of Department of irrigation asked about the subsidy in irrigation systems.
Mr. Bhesh Raj Thapa raised a query about the actual net income per hectre from the
irrigated and un-irrigated agriculture so that we can justify the importance of irrigation.
Project Director of Community Managed Irrigated Agriculture Sector Project, Mr. Navin
Mangal Joshi raised the question on cost per hectre of small scale irrigation systems and
its effectiveness compared to conventional irrigation systems and cost of construction of
pond. Then after corresponding paper presenter responded to relevant queries and issues
were discussed on floor as well.

2.3. Session II: Economics of Irrigated Agriculture

This session was chaired by Mr. Navin Mangal Joshi and rapporteur was Mr Hari Ram
Shrestha, SDE, DOI. Three papers were presented in this session which was mainly focused
on economics of irrigated agriculture. The first paper highlighted on the use of micro
irrigation in rural development while the second paper focused on the major indicators for
modernization and commercialization of irrigated agriculture. The third paper discussed
about the status of IWRM in some of the river basins in Asia.

2.3.1. Micro Irrigation for Rural Development in Nepal (A Case study of Micro
Irrigation Piloting under IWRMP)

Mr Krishna Bahadur Kunwar presented the paper on case study of micro irrigation piloting
carried out in three districts Arghakhachi, Banke and Kailali. He stated that the main
objective of the program was to improve livelihood of the poor households by providing
micro-irrigation schemes with co-financed grant support for the enhancement of water use
efficiency in water scarce areas. He discussed about the various activities of program in
mobilization phase, construction/installation phase, post construction phase and financing
and investment group support. He mentioned that Tube well/artesian in the foothill of Chure
for high value crops, treadle pump for income generation in Terai, similarly earth dam,
water lifting, recharging traditional Kuwa, water harvesting community tanks/ individual
tanks were some of the main micro irrigation application in the program. He highlighted
that improved food security, increased household income, intensified cropping pattern,
increased social capital, increased access to input and market and skill development of
farmers on installation and O&M of micro irrigation systems were some of the initial
impacts of the piloting program.

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2.3.2. Economics of Irrigated Crops: Major Indicator for Modernization and
Commercialization

Mr. Tulasi Gautam has presented the paper on the above topic. He initially highlighted
irrigation status of the country by ecological and development region and he also discussed
about the reasons for low irrigated land area in the hills and mountain region. He highlighted
that the Nonconventional irrigation technology is more suited for mid hills and high hills
due to limits of low lands for surface irrigation and such irrigation technology should be
expanded in upland hills while integrating market oriented agriculture products. He showed
that the area of vegetable farming has increased considerably over time in every ecological
zone. He also mentioned that benefit cost ratio for off season and main season vegetables
are much higher than paddy and wheat. He further added that the only way to provide year
round irrigation in mid hills and high hills is through micro irrigation. He concluded his
presentation with recommendations for policy level to formulate land use policy, integration
of irrigation and agriculture extension and to update statistical information on irrigation
coverage, cropping intensity, productivity, food security and livelihood issues.

2.3.3. IWRM: Status in some of the river basins in Asia

Mr. Ashish Bhadra Khanal, SDE, of DOI was the presenter of this paper. He started with
the definition of IWRM by Global Water Partnership as a process which promotes the
coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order
to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without
compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. He stated the UN Water report 2000
which revealed the existence of diverse interpretation among countries of IWRM planning
and management process and their frameworks. He then highlighted some of the features,
strategic plan and frameworks, principal duties and institutional arrangement of Nam Ngum
river basin, Laos and Bengawan Solo river Basin, Indonesia. He pointed out that the concept
of IWRM in Nepal was first documented in Water Resource Strategy 2002 and National
Water Plan 2005. He highlighted the key activities to be carried out for mainstreaming of
IWRM. He also discussed about the activities of IWRM being carried out in various river
basins of Nepal. He concluded his presentation saying that the South Asian nations can
benefit from the learning of the successful lesson of River basin organizations and this will
be useful not only for interstate but transboundary issues too.

At the end of the session, the floor was opened for the discussion. Questions were asked to
the presenters related to their presentation and each presenter responded to the respective

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queries. The chair then summed up by saying that in addition to the economic benefit, there
is also social benefit as well as multiplier effect of irrigation. He finally thanked all the
presenters and participants and closed the session.

2.4. Session III: Governance in Irrigation

Third session was chaired by DDG Mr. Madhev Belbase and helped by S.D.E. Mr. Kishor
Kumar Bhattarai as a rapporteur. Four papers were presented under the sub theme of
"Governance in Irrigation."

2.4.1. Governance through internal auditing in Irrigation and Agriculture

Mr Janak Raj Gautam, Director of Nepal Administrative Staff College (NASC) presented
paper titled “Governance through internal auditing in Irrigation and Agriculture”. Mr
Gautam's paper was both refresher and revealing for all the participants. He correlated
auditing with the good governance and highlighted importance of auditing for the
transparency and fight against corruption. He dealt about various the aspects of auditing in
great detail and made it understandable to participants most of whom were technicians. He
explained about the different duties and responsibilities of auditors and elaborated about
concept of performance audit. He talked about regulatory financial audit. He emphasized
that auditing not only controls financial transaction but also helps to ensure quality in
works, effective and efficient use of resources, promotion of public trust and internal
cooperation in organization. It is a source of responsibility in executor. He also drew
attention of the participants towards the most common mistake made by authorized person
in handling resources and gave clues regarding avoiding such mistake. Finally he closed his
presentation with latest report of Auditor General.

His conclusion was that good governance can be realized if government makes public
service delivery effective through transparency, participation, accountability, and legitimacy
particularly in development affairs.

2.4.2. Rethinking Governance framework in irrigation service

Second paper titled 'Rethinking Governance Framework in Irrigation Service” was presented
by Mr. Laxman Neupane, Phd scholar, Central for Empowerment and Development (CED)
Nepal. This presentation dealt with issues of sustainability and governance in detail.
His presentation was very informative with theories to deal with social and economical
aspects of proper governance. He talked about different aspects of sustainability, types

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of governance and different approaches propounded for the welfare of common man. He
tried to establish a linkage between sustainability and type of governance. After talking in
detail about Capability Approach by Amartya Sen and Social Ecological System (SES) by
Ostrom, he tried to correlate them with governance in irrigation sector in particular. He
talked in detail about various elements of irrigation service governance. He concluded his
deliberation with findings of UN body on water and in particular irrigation related issues.

2.4.3. Small Scale Irrigation systems in the context of Irrigation Policy of Nepal

Third paper of the session was jointly presented by Dr. Prachandra Pradhan, Horiane
Clement and Fraser Sudgen. The title of the paper was small irrigation systems in Nepal:
Its role and contribution in the livelihood of the local community in the context of irrigation
policy of Nepal. Paper focused on small scale irrigation systems and their impact in local
community. Paper tried to estimate number of small scale irrigation system in Nepal and
stressed on the importance of inventory of such projects. Paper also dealt in detail about
O&M aspect of such systems, peoples participation in it local governance and assistance
from local and international agencies both governmental and non governmental agencies.

Dr. Pradhan started the presentation with the discussion on importance of Small Scale
Irrigation system (SSIS) for addressing scattered agricultural uplands. Paper highlighted
about the institutional arrangements for Irrigation Development and Maintenance.

This paper was basically based on the study conducted by International Water Management
Institute (IWMI), on Irrigation Improvement intervention in Western Upland Poverty
Alleviation Project (WUPAP) funded by International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD). The study was carried out in Bajhang and Mugu Districts. Study included social,
biophysical environment, process of intervention, role, power and responsibility of the
users committees and management of the system. The intervention had positive results in
water service delivery but large variation was within irrigation system about ownership,
rights and O &M.

Paper also forwarded few issues toward assistance to SSIS where irrigation system
development should not be always seen from engineering-centered approach rather
it should be inclusive, give attention to gender concern, emergence of self governing
local water institutions, provision of self-supporting institutions and poverty alleviation.
He added community engagement during intervention through project preparation to
implementation and O&M has to be the prime concern in the implementation of small scale
irrigation development programs. Since many agencies have been providing assistance to

— 12 —
SSISs, there has not been uniform and consistent policy on intervention. Paper also gave
information about arrangements made in previous laws for the maintenance of the farmer
managed irrigation systems.

2.5. Session IV: Ground water Irrigation in Nepal

Mr. Siddhi Pratap Khand, DDG, DOI was the chairperson for the session and Mr. Andy
Prakash Bhatt was the rapporteur. Two technical papers related to Ground Water Irrigation
in Nepal were presented. First paper dealt with analytical status of Groundwater Irrigation
in Nepal and Second paper highlighted the present scenario of Groundwater Usages and
Role of GWRDB in development as well as Management of Groundwater Resources.

2.5.1. Analytical Status of Groundwater Irrigation in Nepal

The paper was presented by Mr. Sagar Kumar Rai, Project Chief, Groundwater Irrigation
Project. He shared the Groundwater Irrigation status in Nepal analytically according to the
state of Groundwater Irrigation facilities. According to the report of DoI, the developed
infrastructure of the groundwater irrigation is about 342,376 ha out of total developed
infrastructure in 1,311,960 ha. In the groundwater infrastructure, about 969 DTWs and
111,517 STW are constructed. However, 395 DTWs are seen older than 15 years which
covers about 20,248 ha (42%) irrigated land. Similarly, the 31,825 STWs are seen older
than 15 Years and its coverage land is about 108,649 ha (32%). All together about 128,933
ha (33%) land which showing irrigated through the groundwater irrigation may not be
existed in the field. Thus he recommended that there is the urgent need to do assessment of
present status of facilities and accordingly carryout immediate rehabilitation program for
both Shallow and Deep Tube well.

2.5.2. Present Scenario of Groundwater Usages and Role of GWRDB in its

management

Mr. Nir Shakya and Mr. Surendra Raj Shrestha, Senior Hydrogeologist presented paper on
scenario of Ground water Usages and role of Groundwater Resources Development Broad
in its management in Nepal. Mr. Shakya started with the present status of Ground water
resources in Mid Hills and Terai. He said that the total groundwater extraction for irrigation
is 1146 MCM per year. At present, only 20% of the available dynamic groundwater recharge
(8800 MCM per year) in Terai is being utilized. In 2011 and 1996 this figure was only about
16% and 10% respectively.

— 13 —
He then gave few prospects of groundwater over utilization in Kathmandu valley to fulfill
the increasing water demand and said that every year 10,000 new houses are being built in
Kathmandu Valley and if this continues then in 35 years there is no absolute no recharge
zone. He also said that nearby Chandragiri Valley is the potential valley for groundwater
storage. He then highlighted the role and responsibility of the Groundwater Resources
Development Board for the management of the resources.

Plenary Session: Sharing Past experiences and Way Forward

A plenary session was organized to share the past experiences in the irrigation development
in Nepal and assess the way forward. Mr. Bhuwanesh Kumar Pradhan was the chairperson
of the session and Ms. Sarita Dwadi and Saroj Pandit were the rapportuer for the session.
Mr. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Dr. Umesh Nath Parajuli and Mr. Prachanda Pradhan were the
panel of Experts. Mr. Shital Babu Regmee and Mr. Som Nath Paudel were the Key Note
speakers for the session.

Mr. Shital Babu Regmee, Ex- Secretary of GoN highlighted in the Development
Chronology of Irrigation in Nepal. He highlighted on the process of irrigation development
through traditional farmers managed irrigation system to intervention of GoN in Irrigation
infrastructure development in periodic plans. He added that in future, water need and
utilization scenario will differ as different water user sector viz agriculture, hydropower,
drinking water, industry will be competing. The issues of climate change, water ecology,
groundwater sustainability is raising and to top that, effect of climate change is additional
threat in water resources. In such, issues of riparian water rights will be increased, thus a
very intelligent vision and plans are needed. He suggested that to assure water delivery,
it is essential to introduce high efficiency irrigation methods, reduce water loss, increase
financial transparency and introduce new irrigation technologies.

Mr. Som Nath Paudel, irrigation expert, in his speech said that it is impossible to increase
the agricultural land so it is important to increase the water productivity. He said that an
ample resource is needed for irrigation system planning. O & M has always been weak
and got very little attention but to ensure the increased water productivity, management of
the system should also be prioritized. In addition to it, appropriate technology according
to the site is needed. He added that the strong coordination has to be established between
WUA and Government Agency. Many hindrances due to legal issues, environmental issues
and financial issues often led to the delay of the projects thus these needs to be addressed

— 14 —
appropriately. He also said that we have lots of Plan, Policy, Acts and Regulations but
these are very weekly implemented thus for way forward, DOI need to concentrate
on coordination between stake holders, focused on year round irrigation, local skill
development for planning, implementation and management, Reduce political interference
during project identification, effective and meaningful farmer participation, collection ISF
for sustainability of system, Develop sustainable, reliable and equitable distribution system,
Develop groundwater development acts and regulation, Increase irrigation efficiency, adopt
technology compatible to the local level, environmentally friendly technology, enhance
public awareness and climate change friendly technology.

Mr. Shiv Kumar Sharma, DG, DOI stated that up to third periodic plan (1956 to 1970) ,
the focus was only on development of infrastructure and from 3rd to 6th plan, focus was on
water management in irrigation development but now DOI is focusing on construction of
new infrastructure as well as management of existing projects. He added that to achieve the
goal of year round irrigation, DOI is now concentrating on ground water projects. Similarly
inter-basin diversion projects have initiated. DoI has also started focusing on the regional
balance of irrigation development.

Dr. Umesh Parajuli said that increment of water efficiently can be achieved either by adequate
supply or by demand management. Adequate supply can be achieved by development of
diversion projects, development of small (low height) reservoir, development of farm pond
and for demand management, introduction of low water consuming crops are needed. He
added flexibility, reliability and equity in water service delivery are the key factors of system
management. In addition to that market demand crops and high value crops are needed to
be introduced for the agricultural commercialization to increase the economy of irrigation
water. He said that focus is needed in four aspects of management i.e. system maintenance,
system operation, water accounting and users participation. He also highlighted that private
sector involvement can be beneficial in operation and maintenance of the irrigation system.
Likewise, DOI should draw its attention on river basin management issues.

Dr. Prachanda Pradhan said that there is an urgent need of research and training center
in DoI. He added that it is now need to discuss the institutional development and social
component in large irrigation projects. He further said that irrigation is all way should mean
for the poverty reduction of the community.

Mr. Ratneshwor Lal Kayestha said that the commericaligation of agriculture can be
promoted with focus on land management and form irrigation management. Introduction

— 15 —
of cash crops and crop diversification should be in accordance with to market demand.
He added research and development unit is needed to be strengthened. He also agreed
that private sector investment is needed in O & M for the sustainability of the system
and for effective service delivery. Similarly, pilot programs and impact study should get
importance in river basin management.

Chairperson opened floor for discussion after the view of key note speakers and panel
of experts. Mr. Pradeep Raj Pandey said that DOI need to focus on maintenance of
existing irrigation infrastructure and he added that often problem arises due to selection of
maximum projects mainly in case of medium irrigation projects. He also raised the issue of
less number of technical manpower in field level. Likewise, Mr. Sagar Kumar Rai said that
only 70 % of budget is allocated in 20 Terai districts but now it is high time to focus on hilly
region. Similarly advantages of micro irrigation to address the remote agricultural patches
in hilly region and terai should not be overlooked. Er. Madhav Belbase added that focus on
less water consuming crops is needed. Continuing the floor discussion, Er. Susan Shakya
added that there should be very clear scoping of DOI and DOLIDAR in small irrigation
projects. Er. Rajendra Adhikari dragged the attention to incorporate water induced disaster
during planning phase of irrigation project.

Concluding the session, Chairperson, Mr. Bhubanesh Kumar Pradhan said that it is needed
to motivate engineers in quality work. In addition to that, DOI should start implementing
diversion project to ensure water service delivery and said that Surface, Ground water and
Non-conventional irrigation projects should be collectively implemented to achieve our
goal.

Closing Session
The seminar concluded on the evening of the 25th May, 2013. Mr. Shiv Kumar Sharma was
the chairperson of the session and Mr. Uma Kant Jha, Hon. Minister, Ministry of Irrigation
was the chief guest of the session. Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, MOI was special
guest of the session.

Mr. Basu Dev Lohanee, Chief, SMTP, DOI summarized the seminar and conveyed the vote
of thanks to all paper presenters and participants for the active and fruitful participation. He
highlighted the key points raised in the group discussion.

Mr. Uma Kant Jha, Hon. Minister, Ministry of Irrigation congratulated the DoI for
successful organization of the National Irrigation Seminar. He showed appreciation towards
— 16 —
the efforts of organizing team and paper presenters to exercise on the different national
issues of irrigation development, modernization and irrigation management. He added that
similar program should be constantly organized and also emphasized on making necessary
changes in the policy and strategies as according to the valuable conclusions made in the
seminar and their timely implementation of the activities in the future. He also highlighted
and committed on irrigation development and inter basin transfer project.

Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, Ministry of Irrigation said that it is now imperative to
focus on research and development sector to meet the responsibility as laid by Government.
He added National Irrigation seminar is a platform to share knowledge and experience
among the experts in Irrigation sector so as to narrow down the gap in irrigation development
& management for fulfilling food security of nation.

The chairperson, Mr. Shiv Kumar Sharma appreciated Chief Guest Hon. Minister Mr. Uma
Kanta Jha for interest, guidance and participation in the sessions. He also thanked Mr.
Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, MOI, panel of expert of plenary session, key note speakers
and chairperson, co-organizer INPIM Nepal, IWMI Nepal, sponsors viz Consolidated
Management Services P. Ltd., Fullbright Consultancy P. Ltd., Sheladia Multi Disciplinary
P. Ltd. , Silt consult P. Ltd., water resources experts, press and organizing committee for
the successful program organization. He finally thanked paper presenters for highlighting
on the related issues of irrigation development and irrigation modernization. He thanked
session chairs and rapporteurs for their cooperation. He also thanked participants for active
participation and said that the workshop was successful in generating conclusion to address

— 17 —
the objectives.

3. Conclusion and Recommendations

The highlights of the sessions and the recommendations generated from the seminar are
highlighted below:

3.1 Highlights of the technical sessions

Brief highlights of the different papers presented in the technical session are enumerated
as key points in following sections:

Technical session I: Irrigation Modernization for Water Productivity and Crop

Production

• MASSCOTE (Mapping System and Services for Canal Operation Techniques)

which is one of the tools developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) used for developing irrigation modernization plans. It is a step-
wise procedure for auditing performance of Irrigation management by analyzing and
evaluating the different elements of an irrigation system and develops a modernization
plan consisting of physical, institutional and managerial innovations to improve water
delivery services to all users and cost effectiveness of operation and management.

• The design manuals of the Department of Irrigation recommends Lacey’s regime

equations and White-Bettess-Paris tables with the Tractive Force equations for the
design of earthen canals carrying sediment. But in practice, there is no consistency in
the design approaches. The approaches have been found to vary from canal to canal
even within the same irrigation schemes as a result according to the assessment done
on Sunsari Morang Irrigation Project, unwanted erosion or deposition in the canal
network was experienced, thus requiring heavy investment for annual operation and
maintenance.

• The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) done on West Seti Basin was used to
simulate water balances in different cropping patterns under current and future climates.
The results shows that as impact of climate change Precipitation will decrease on the
summer crops fields except on the maize; and will increase on the winter crops and
accordingly summer crop yields will decrease and winter crop yields will increase.

— 18 —
• Pond irrigation system has highly potential for fresh vegetable farming. This irrigation
system is successful because the technology is simple to understand and implement
by local technicians and farmers. It is a low-cost technology having a high probability
of economic benefits. The technology is suitable for hill areas which account for more
than 50% of the land area in Nepal, and is appropriate for small farmers striving for
additional income from their small land and is environment friendly.

Technical Session II: Economics of Irrigated Agriculture

• The Micro Irrigation Piloting Programmes has been successful in two ways, one
in developing the infrastructure and second in institutional development process. It
supported the community groups with capacity building in social mobilization, group
savings, leadership and microfinance for institutional development.

• Irrigation can contribute to enhance agricultural production if it is properly integrated

as a part of agricultural development package.

• Successful application of IWRM tool in many river basin; Tennesse, Murray and
Mekong and learning the successful lessons of RBO, South Asian countries can benefit
more and suffer less. This will be useful not only for interstate but transboundary
issues too which will avoid incremental, project by project activities in upper and
lower riparian.

Technical Session III: Governance in Irrigation

• Good governance can be in motion when government can make public service
delivery effective through transparency, participation, accountability, and legitimacy
particularly in development affairs. Internal auditing is a process of practicing Good
Governance.

• Small scale irrigation systems (SSIS) not just a means to increase food production for
food security but offer many development opportunities for the rural population. SSISs
in the past have been considered by government agencies and donors as infrastructures
but in fact it represents the embodiment of local knowledge, local technology and
skills, and reflect the system of social relations, resource mobilization and institutions
for natural resource management by the community.

— 19 —
 Session IV: Groundwater Irrigation in Nepal

• In irrigated land, the groundwater irrigation is contributing on 342,376 ha (26% of

total irrigated area) but 395 DTWs are seen older than 15 years which covers about
20,248 ha (42%) irrigated land. Similarly, 31,825 STWs are seen older than 15 Years
and its coverage land is about 108,649 ha (32%). All together about 128,933 ha (33%)
land which showing irrigated through the groundwater irrigation may not be existed
in the field

• The total groundwater extraction for irrigation is 1146 MCM per year. At present,
only 20% of the available dynamic groundwater recharge (8800 MCM per year) in
Terai is being utilized. In 2011 this figure was about 16% and it was only 10% in 1996
respectively.

• There is no control mechanism of Groundwater Resources utilization. Construction

of tubewells (personal household level and commercial uses like hospital, housings,
industrial area etc) haphazardly is causing groundwater resources depletion in
Kathmandu Valley and so constructed wells has reported arsenic Concentration from
many parts of Terai.

3.2. Recommendations

• MASSCOTE can be used as a tool for capacity building and motivating the O&M
staff. There should be sequence the work so that interventions that help restoring
confidence and trust of the users are carried out first and proper communication with
the stakeholders is vital for successful implementation.

• Design of the canal for sediment transport should be an integrated approach of

hydraulic calculations and recommended to use rational canal design approach that
takes into account of Holistic design/planning concept, Prediction of roughness,
Adaption of sediment transport predictors, Integration of water management plans
and Sediment management.

• Pond Irrigation system serves the most vulnerable groups of the society. To upscale,
technology should be incorporated in governments’ plan and policy. Trainings related
to technology should be provided to authorities of government bodies at local and

— 20 —
 national level but also disseminated with farmers, other governmental and non-
governmental organizations and donor agencies world-wide.

• To foster the economics of irrigated agriculture, Land use policy should incorporated
to restrict Irrigated land used in housing construction. Strong mandatory of integration
of irrigation and agricultural extension technology program is needed. Need to
establish one Apex Body to look for irrigation system by restructuring the existing
organizational structures. Need to update statistical information on irrigation coverage,
cropping intensity, productivity, and food security and livelihood issues.

• Internal audit system should address economy, efficiency, effectiveness, Equity and
fairness, accountability and responsiveness.

• Need consideration of inclusiveness, gender concern, self-governing local water

institutions, provision of self-supporting institutions and poverty alleviation provisions
during implementation of small scale irrigation system projects.

• Rather than package of “deliverables” to be provided by the government or donors for

SSIS projects, due consideration to be given to local skill, knowledge, local technology
and local materials during feasibility and design and construction time for the success
and sustainability.

• There is an urgent need to conduct reassessment study of groundwater irrigation to

find the real (as per observation ) status of DTW and STW and Causes of failure of
DTW and STW and accordingly Rehabilitation program should be lunched for both
Shallow and Deep Tube well.

• The withdrawal of the GW in Kathmandu valley is more than recharge rate thus
artificial groundwater recharge applying suitable technology to balance the overdraft
condition should be adopted and for unlimited abstraction and pollution control, the
regulating institution should be established.

• Groundwater is a valuable resource of the Country, a strong regulating as well as

investigating government agency is needed to manage it.

3.3. Identified themes for next workshop/seminar

• Year Round Irrigation

— 21 —
 • IWRM: New tools and Approaches

• Ground water Irrigation and Lift Irrigation

• Non-Conventional Irrigation Technologies

• Scope and Potential of Multipurpose Projects

• Farmers Managed Irrigation Systems

• Challenges in Irrigation Financing

• Human Resources Management in Irrigation

Irrigation Development and management from Gender Equity and Social Inclusion

— 22 —
Annexes

Annex – 1
Program Schedule

— 23 —
— 24 —
 Na onal Irriga on Seminar, 2070
“Challenges and Opportuni es in Irriga on Development
for Green Revolu on”
Program Schedule
Venue: Dhulikhel Lodge Resort, Dhulikhel
Date: 2070/2/10-11(2 days)
Master of Ceremony: Er. Basudev Timilsina,SDE,SMTP

DAY 1 (Jestha 10, 2070, Friday)

9:30-10:30 Breakfast
10:30-11.00 Registra on of Par cipants
Inaugural Ceremony
Chairperson: Er. Shiv Kumar Sharma, DG, DOI
Chief Guest: Hon. Minister, Er. Uma Kant Jha, MOI
Special Guest: Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, MOI
Special Guest: Mr. Bishwa Prakash Pandit, Secretary, WECS
Special Guest: Er. Prakash Paudel , DG, DWIDP
Special Guest: Mr. Pramod Raj Sharma, ED, GWDB
Special Guest: Er. Mahindra Bahadur Gurung, President, NEA
Special Guest: Mr. Ram Prasad Meheta , President, NFIWUAN
Special Guest: IWMI Representa ve
Special Guest: INPIMI Representa ve
Seminar Coordinator: Er. U am Raj Timilsina, DDG, DOI
Time Ac vi es Resource Persons
Er. U am Raj Timilsina, DDG,
11:00-11:05 Welcome Address
DOI
Introduc on to the seminar design and Er. Basu Dev Lohanee, Chief,
11:05-11:15
content SMTP
Hon. Minister, Er. Uma Kant
11:15-11:25 Inaugura on
Jha, MOI
11:25-11:30 Few words from Special guest INPIM Representa ve
11:30-11:35 Few words from Special guest IWMI Representa ve
Mr. Ram Prasad Meheta ,
11:35-11:40 Few words from Special guest
President, NFIWUAN
Er. Mahindra Bahadur
11:40-11:45 Few words from Special guest
Gurung, President, NEA

— 25 —
 Mr. Pramod Raj Sharma, ED,
11:45-11:50 Few words from Special guest
GWDB
Er. Prakash Paudel , DG,
11:50-11:55 Few words from Special guest
DWIDP
Mr. Bishwa Prakash Pandit,
11:55-12:00 Few words from Special guest
Secretary, WECS
Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak,
12:00-12:05 Few words from Special guest
Secretary, MOI
Hon. Minister, Er. Uma Kant
12:05-12:10 Few words from Chief guest
Jha, MOI
Er. Shiv Kumar Sharma, DG,
12:10-12:15 Few words from Chairperson
DOI
12:15-14:00 Launch Break
Technical Session I (Irriga on Moderniza on for Water Produc vity and Crop Produc on)
Chairperson: Mr. Kamal Regmi
Rapporteur: Mr. Min Raj Dhakal , SDE, DOI
Applica on of MASSCOTE Tool for Enhancing Water Suman Sijapa ,
14:00- 14:20
Produc vity in Nepal through Irriga on Moderniza on INPIM Nepal

Design of Irriga on Canals for Sediment Transport Krishna P. Paudel

14:20- 14:40
A Case Study of Sunsari Morang Irriga on Project

Pabitra Gurung,
Applica on of the SWAT Model to a assess climate change Luna Bhata /
14:40- 15:00 impacts on water balances and crop yields in the West Se IWMI Nepal
River Basin Saroj Karki/ IOE
TU Nepal
Susan Shakya,
Improved food security and income for small farmers
15:00-15:20 LILI Helvetas
through pond irriga on
Nepal
15:20-15:40 Discussion on the session
15:40-16:00 Tea Break
Technical Session II (Economics of Irrigated Agriculture)
Chairperson: Mr. Nabin Mangal Joshi
Rapporteur: Mr.Hari Ram Shrestha, SDE, DOI
Krishna Bahadur
Kunwar,
Micro Irriga on for Rural Development in Nepal Mr.Bashu Dev
16:00-16:20
(A case study of Micro-Irriga on Pilo ng under IWRMP) Lohanee,
Dr.Kishor
Bha arai

— 26 —
 Economics of Irrigated Crops: Major Indicator for Tulasi Gautam,
16:20-16:40 moderniza on and Commercializa on of Irrigated Agri-Economist
Agriculture

Ashish Bhadra
16:40-17:00 IWRM: Status in some of the river basins in Asia Khanal ,SDE,
DOI
17:00-17:20 Discussion on Session
DAY 2 ( Jestha 11, 2070, Saturday)
8:30-09:30 Breakfast
Technical Session III (Governance in Irriga on )
Chairperson: Mr. Madhav Belbase, DDG, DOI
Rapporteur: Dr. Kishor Bha arai, SDE, DOI
Governance through Internal Audi ng in Irriga on and Janak Raj
09:30- 09:50
Agriculture Gautam
Small Scale Irriga on Systems in the context of Irriga on Prachanda
09:50- 10:10
Policy of Nepal Pradhan
Laxman
10:10- 10:30 Rethinking Governance Framework in Irriga on Service
Neupane
10:30-10:50 Discussion on Session
10:50-11:10 Tea Break
Technical Session IV ( Groundwater Irriga on in Nepal )
Chairperson: Mr. Siddi Pratap Khand, DDG, DOI
Rapporteur: Andy Prakash Bha a, SDHG, DOI
11:10-11:30 Analy cal Status of Groundwater Irriga on in Nepal Sagar Kumar Rai
Present Scenario of Groundwater Usages and Role of Nir Shakya/
11:30-11:50 GWRDB in Development as well as Management of Surendra Raj
Groundwater Resources Shrestha
11:50-12:10 Discussion on Session
12:10-13:50 Launch Break
Plenary Session
“Sharing Past Experiences and The Way Forward”
13:50-15:30
Chairperson:Mr. Bhubanesh Kumar Pradhan
Panel of Experts: Mr. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Mr. Ratneshwor Lal Kayastha, Dr. Umesh Nath
Parajuli, Dr. Prachanda Pradhan
Key note Speaker :Mr. Sheetal Babu Regmi, Som Nath Paudel
Rapporteur :Mr. Saroj Pandit and Mrs. Sarita Dawadi

— 27 —
 15:30-16:00 Tea Break
Closing Session
Chairperson: Er. Shiv Kumar Sharma, DG, DOI
Chief Guest: Hon. Minister, Er. Uma Kant Jha, MOI
Special Guest : Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak, Secretary, MOI
Special Guest : Mr. Bishwa Prakash Pandit, Secretary, WECS
Seminar Coordinator: Er. U am Raj Timilsina, DDG, DOI
Time Ac vi es Resource Persons
16:00-16:10 Conclusion remarks of the seminar Er. Basudev Lohanee
Er. U am Raj Timilsina, DDG,
16:10-16:15 Few words from Seminar Coordinator
DOI
Mr. Pratap Kumar Pathak,
16:15-16:20 Few words from special Guest
Secretary, MOI
Mr. Bishwa Prakash Pandit,
16:20-16:25 Few words from special Guest
Secretary, WECS
Hon. Minister, Er. Uma Kant
16:25-16:30 Few words from Chief guest
Jha, MOI
Er. Shiv Kumar Sharma, DG,
16:30-16:40 Seminar closing from Chairperson
DOI

— 28 —
 Annex –2
Participant List

— 29 —
— 30 —
 Telephone
S.No. Name Designa on Organiza on Address Email Address
Office Mobile Residence
Ministry of Irriga on
1 Umakant Jha Minister MOI Singhadurbar
2 Pratap Kumar Pathak Secretary MOI Singhadurbar
3 Kamal Prasad Regmi Joint Secreatary MOI Singhadurbar
4 Rabindra Karmacharya Joint Secreatary MOI Singhadurbar
5 Pramod Kumar Shrestha SDE MOI Singh darbar 4211515 9841328789 [email protected]
7 Som Raj Baral Sec on Officer MOI 4211530 9741150335 6615594 [email protected]
Water and Energy Secretariat
8 Bishwa Prakash Pandit Secretary WECS

—
9 Sishir Koirala SDE WECS Singhdurbar 9841446340 4443064 [email protected]
10 Dinakar Khanal SDE WECS Singhdurbar 4211421 9841801919 4102923 [email protected]

31 —
Department of Irriga on

11 Shiv Kumar Sharma Director General DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 9851091724 4423310 [email protected]
12 U am Raj Timilsina DDG DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 5537310 9841684994 u amraj [email protected]
13 Siddhi Pratap Khan DDG DOI Jawalakhel 5537312 9841326458 5006145 [email protected]

14 Madhav Belbase Deputy Director General DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur

15 Sagar Kumar Rai GWIP Project Chief Chitwan 5537112 9841377170 6637258 [email protected]
16 Sushil Chandra Tiwari DDG DOI Jawalakhel 5531313 9851102833 4354294 sushil [email protected]
17 Narendra Bahadur Lama S.E. DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 5537811 9849405324 4354188 [email protected]
18 Ashok Shigh Project Director DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 5521082 9849934881 4410393 [email protected]
19 Rajendra Prasad Adhikari Regional Director WRID Pokhara 15535382 9841694730 4371274 [email protected]
 20 Basanta Rayamajhi Regional Director FWRID Dhangadhi 091-52124 9856050777 5535175 [email protected]
21 Niranjan Dev Pandey Project Director, IWRMP DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur
22 Saroj Pandit Director MWRID Surkhet 9851090307 [email protected]
23 Sarita Dawadi S.E. DOI Pulchowk, Lalitpur 9851149053 [email protected]
24 Ram Babu Regmi Coordinator MIP DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 5540630 9841518609 4601996 [email protected]
25 Shiv Kumar Basnet Project Director DOI surkhet 5522161 9841246299 4371882 [email protected]
26 Sanat K.C. Chief Account Controller DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 5537307 9841553808 [email protected]

27 Basu Dev Lohanee SDE DOI Naxsal -1 Kath Nepal 5528585 9841277760 4443306 [email protected]
28 Basudev Timilshina SDE DOI Jawalakhel 5548113 9841516405 4104152 basu [email protected]
29 Rajendra Bir Joshi SDE DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 9851095211 5250095 [email protected]

—
30 Hariram Shrestha SDE DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 9841351780 4361618 [email protected]
31 Ashish Bhadra Khanal Senior Divisional Engineer DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 9841405211 [email protected]

32 —
32 Amrit Shrestha SDE DOI 5548112 9841336658 4376200 [email protected]
33 Raj Narayan Shah SDE DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 4498786 9841315490 4498786 [email protected]
34 Mohan Prasad Sangraula SDE DOI Tinthana VDC-6 civil 5537306 9841384984 [email protected]
homes II-57
35 Rajeshwor Gyawali Chief Adm. Officer DOI Jawalakhel 5536308 9851138012 [email protected]

36 Mekh Nath Sharma SDE DOI Jawalakhel 9855058916 4353301 [email protected]

37 Andy Prakash Bha a SDHG DOI Kathmandu 5537312 9803368982 4993102 [email protected]
38 Ran Bahadur Bam SDE DOI Jawalakhel 9851125563 5554280 [email protected]
39 Dhruba Prasad Acharya SDE DOI Jawalakhel 5537306 9841518423 4276612 [email protected]
40 Raghu Nath Shrestha SDE DOI Jawalakhel 9841713758 [email protected]
 41 Manoj Lal Pradhan SSO DOI Jawalakhel 55548435 5537313 manojlalpradhan2060@
gmail.com
42 Basanta Raj Paudel SDE DOI Jawalakhel 9846038330 [email protected]
43 Manohar Kumar Shah SDE DOI Jawalakhel 9844020184 [email protected]
44 Kishor Kumar Bha arai SDE DOI Shankhamul Road 5545345 9841405742 4784996 [email protected]

45 Dinesh Rajouria SDE DOI 9841448586 [email protected]

46 Santosh Kokh Shrestha S. Agri. Economist DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 5527151 9841558179 4252186 [email protected]

47 Sanu Maiya Shrestha S. Agri. Economist DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 5537313 9841666444 5251383 [email protected]

48 Kala Nidhi Poudyal SLO DOI Jawalakhel 9841208017 [email protected]

—
49 Chetman Budthapa S. Sociologist DOI Jawalakhel, Lalitpur 9841578667 4363601 [email protected]

33 —
50 Gauri Lal Upadhaya S. Sociologist DOI Jawalakhel 5527151 9841304501 [email protected]
51 Mitra Baral SDE DOI Jawalakhel 9841520693 5520492 [email protected]
52 Tikaram Baral SDE DOI Jawalakhel 9851113146 baral. karam@gmail .com
53 Tara Prashad Bha a Engineer DOI 9841493225 tarabha [email protected]
54 Randhir Kumar Sah Engineer DOI 9844150476 [email protected]
55 Prashanna Muni Tamrakar Engineer DOI Jawalakhes 5537302 9841600345 [email protected]
56 Manoj Pantha Engineer DOI DOI 9841456205 [email protected]
57 Mukesh Pathak Engineer DOI Dadeldhura 9848728017 [email protected]
58 Bishnu Prasad Gyawali Account Officer DOI Jawalakhel 9849361238 [email protected]
59 Kumar Prasad Pokhrel Sec on Officer DOI jawalakhel 5535382 9851077488 4492441 [email protected]
 60 Rajendra Kumar Thapa Technical Assistant DOI Jawalakhel 5527151 9841423515 5250412
61 Guru Prasad Regmi A.O. DOI Jawalakhel 5531310 9841437431
62 Gopal Shrestha DOI Jawalakhel 5537136 9841352633
CRID
63 Pradeep Raj Pandey Director CRID Bhanimandal 5535003 9841420547 4438747 [email protected]

64 Susil Chandra Acharya Division Chief CIDD #7 Dhulikhel 011-490461 9841298066 4388980 [email protected]
65 Dipendra Laudari SDE CRID Lalitpur 5535003 9841385972 4287442 [email protected]
66 Nar Bahadur Khadka SDE CRID Lalitpur 5535003 9841991854 5544392 [email protected]
67 Krishna Pd. Rijal SDE CRID Lalitpur 5535003 9841653148 4284509 [email protected]
68 Sangita Singh S. Sociologist CRID Bhanimandal 4155265 9843131701 sangitasingh123@yahoomail.
com

—
69 Vijay Shanker Mishra Division Chief CIDD#6 Kathmandu 4354722 9841285502 4335114 vijayshanker_500@yahoo.
com

34 —
Ground Water Resource Development Board

70 Pramod Raj Sharma ED GWRDB Babarmahal 5262953 9841441199 4262406 [email protected]

71 Ichha Kumar Shrestha SDHG GWRDB Babarmahal 4262953 9815334332 4278531 [email protected]
72 Basu Dev Aryal Under Secretary GWRDB Babarmahal 4262529 9841328883 4433200 [email protected]
DWIDP

73 Prakash Paudel DG DWIDP Mahankal-9 KTM 5535407 9851118822 4375622 [email protected]

74 Gauri Shankar Bassi DDG DWIDP Pulchowk, Lalitpur 465253 9841241379 4783171 [email protected]
75 Mahajan Yadav DDG DWIDP Pathishar Marg, 9854024261 4770681 [email protected]
Gha ekulo
76 Biswa Raj Marasini DWIDP Singhadurbar
 Others
77 Bhubanesh Kumar Ex.Director General Baluwatar 5536328 9841251052 4414099 bhubaneshpradhan@yahoo.
Pradhan Irriga on com
78 Ratneshwar Lal Kayastha Mount View Resource 9851001516 [email protected]

79 Umesh Nath Parajuli Water Reserve Freehance Baluwatar 9841500236 4419153 [email protected]
Management Engineer

80 Mahendra Bahadur President NEA

Gurung
81 Shyam Sunder Ranjitkar 460 Bahi Mare Chhauni 9841267530 [email protected]

82 Dr. Prachanda Pradhan FMIST St. Mary Road Adarsha 9851027593 [email protected]
Tole Jawalakhel
83 Mathura Dangol Consultant CMS.DK J/V Manbhawan Chowk 5539504 9841203890 42812088 [email protected]

—
84 Nabin Mangal Joshi WR Export Frclancer Lalitpur 9841328083 5537930 [email protected]

35 —
85 Dibya Ratna Kansakar Visi ng Prof. NEC Balkhu 9841056982 4418306 [email protected]
86 Suman Sijapa President INPIM Dhobighat, Lalitpur 5553918 9841388100 5532800 suman@sijapa ,wlink.com.np
87 Ajaya Lal Shtestha Director CMS Nepal (P) Ltd Thapagaon 4484439 9841233230 4435186 [email protected]
88 Krisha Bahadur Kunwar President Three S Kathmandu 4233068 9851041467 [email protected]
Founda on
89 Rajan Subedi Member INPIM Baneswor 9851000454 4285045 [email protected]
90 Pabitra Gurung Research Officer IWMI-Nepal Jhamsikhel, Lalitpur 5542306 9841304145 4390588 [email protected]
91 Niki Maskey Reseach Officer-Social IWMI Jhansikhel 5542306 [email protected]
Science
92 Ramesh Tamang Admin Assistant IWMI Jamsikhel 5542306 9841312720 5560833 [email protected]
93 Arjun Das Shrestha Director Office of the Baneswor - 8 9841374171 011-663846 [email protected]
Auditor General
of Nepal
 94 Chhatra Nath Sharma Audit Officer Office of the Babarmahal 4262415 9841274555 4390308
Auditor General
of Nepal

95 Damodar Aryal Audit Officer Officer Of Auditor Babarmahal 462215 9841743299

General

96 Krishna P. Paudel Managing Director CMS Nepal (P) Ltd New Baneshwor 4484839 9841312471 [email protected]

97 Basu Dev Pokhrel Consultant freelancer Kuleshwor 4287551 9841254853 [email protected]

98 Laxman Neupane Reseach Fellow CED 9841977445 5590231 [email protected]
99 Binod K.C. Midiya Nepal T.V. Kathmandu 9851074519
100 Tilak Gautam
101 Janak Raj Gautam Assist Auditor General, Nepal Seuchator - 8 4034197 5522002 [email protected]

—
former Director of Studies Adminstra ve
Staff College

36 —
102 Tulasi Gautam Agri-Economist New Baneshwor 9841580960 4782117 [email protected]
103 Pra bha Rai Planning Officer NPC 421113 9841707456 [email protected]
104 Pradyumma Prasad Program Director Na onal Planning Singhadurbar 9841187596 4650416 [email protected]
Upadhyay Commission

105 Dibesh Khadha Water Resource Engineer Full Bright 9841440265 [email protected]
Consultancy
106 Bhesh Raj Thapa Water Resource Engineer Full Bright Sinamangar 4780253 9851090316 [email protected]
Consultancy
 Annex – 3
Full papers

— 37 —
— 38 —
 Application of MASSCOTE Tool for Enhancing
Water Productivity in Nepal through Irrigation
Modernization

Suman Sijapati1

ABSTRACT

With rising cropping intensity and more and more adaptation of high yielding varieties, the
level of irrigation service demanded by farmers is on the rise. This coupled with greater
fluctuations in supply sources due to issues like climate change has been making the
task of the irrigation managers / water supply providers even more difficult. In order to
meet this rising demand of service level, it is essential to have appropriate infrastructure
and matching technology which needs to be established in the case of new schemes and
continuously maintained and upgraded in the case of existing irrigation schemes. While
new technologies are being developed to meet these requirements the other key challenge
lies in making it efficient and cost effective. In this context, there is a pressing need for
the irrigation managers in all developing countries including Nepal to use suitable tools
that help in identifying the irrigation modernization needs and a systematic approach in
developing modernization plans that can lead to overall enhancement of water productivity
in the concerned irrigation systems.

This paper will present an introduction to MASSCOTE (MApping System and Services for
Canal Operation Techniques), which is one of the tools developed by the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) used for developing irrigation modernization
plans. It will highlight the relevance of the tool in the context of Nepal. It will also describe
past exercises of using the approach and tool and discuss on how Nepal can benefit from it
towards the end of identifying and implementing irrigation modernization works in a cost-
effective way.

Key words: Irrigation modernization, MASSCOTE, FAO, assessment tools.

INTRODUCTION

Nepal’s resource base for agriculture is severely limited by topographical constraints. The
terrain consists of ‘Terai’ (plain land) in the south, central hilly region and rugged Himalayas
in the north with elevations extremes from 70m to 8,850m. Total arable land is about 2.64
million ha (16% of the country) with permanent crops on less than 1% (Figure 1).

1 President, International Network on Participatory Irrigation Management (INPIM) Nepal. P. O.

Box 8975 EPC 1115, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, Nepal. [email protected]; Mobile #: +977 9841388100.
— 39 —
 Figure 1: Agricultural Coverage and its Trend, Nepal (Source: FAO Database, 2009)

The country’s population is approximately 28 million of which one-third lives below

the poverty line. Agriculture provides livelihood for three-fourths of the population and
accounts for about 33% of gross domestic product (GDP). Figure 2 shows the trend of
increasing population and dependency on agriculture.

Figure 2: Population and Agriculture, Nepal (Source: FAO Database, 2009)

Agricultural practice is highly dependent on rainfall due to inadequate irrigation

infrastructure or facilities. This dependency on rainfall, awaiting monsoon, significantly
influences the sowing and harvesting time. Irrigated land makes about 1,170,000 ha and

— 40 —
total annual renewable water resource is about 210 cubic km. The majority (96%) of the
total fresh water withdrawal (10.18 cu km/yr; 375 cu m/capita) goes to the agriculture
sector.

The Government of Nepal, with and without the support of international donors, has made
continuous efforts for the development of the irrigation sector of the country over the last
five decades. Despite large investments in the sector, only 51% of arable land presently
has irrigation facilities while the rest remains rainfed. Furthermore, only 40% of the area
having irrigation facilities gets year round irrigation while the remaining 60% receives only
seasonal irrigation.

Figure 3: Agricultural Water Managed area, Nepal (Source: FAO Database, 2009)

Figure 4: Agriculture, Value Added to GDP, Nepal (Source: FAO Database, 2009)

— 41 —
To sum up, it is evident from the above statistics that pressure on land resources (cropping
intensity) is on the rise. Nepal has made notable gains in the extent of water managed area
during the period from 1965 to 1995 owing to large investments made in the irrigation
sector, but the relative contribution to the agriculture sector proved to be otherwise due
to its continually declining share in the total economy as is evident from Figure 4 above.
Hence, the country presently faces a stiff challenge of making the agriculture /irrigation
sector more efficient.

INTRODUCTION OF MASSCOTE IN NEPAL

MASSCOTE (MApping System and Services for Canal Operation Techniques)

was introduced in Nepal with the idea of evaluating the performances of some
of the agency-managed irrigation systems and developing appropriate plans for
modernizing them. It was first carried out in Sunsari Morang Irrigation System
(SMIS) in May 2003 and later in Narayani Irrigation System (NIS) in November
2003.

MASSCOTE is a methodology developed by FAO on the basis of its own experience on

modernization programs in Asia between 1998 and 2008. It aggregates all the pieces into
a consistent framework, complementing tools such as Rapid Appraisal Process (RAP)
and Benchmarking2, to allow a complete sequence of diagnosis of external and internal
indicators of performance and practical solutions for an improved management and
operation of the system.

MASSCOTE aims at organizing the project development into a stepwise revolving frame
including:

mapping system characteristics, water context and all factors influencing management

delineating manageable sub-units

defining strategy for service and operation for each units

aggregating and consolidating canal operation strategy at the main system level

MASSCOTE is an iterative process based on 10 successive steps. Some steps need to be

re-discussed and refined several times before reaching consistency. The ten steps are as
follows:

2 Rapid Appraisal Process (RAP) is a tool developed by Irrigation Training and Research Center
(ITRC) of California Polytechnic State University to quickly assess irrigation system performance
while Benchmarking is a similar tool developed through the initiative of the World Bank.

— 42 —
1. INITIAL ASSESSMENT

Initial rapid diagnosis and assessment through RAP or others.

Objectives:
i. to get an initial sense of what and where the problems are,
how they should be prioritized, etc.;
1. RAPID DIAGNOSIS
ii. to start mobilizing the energy of the actors (managers and
users) for modernization;
iii. to generate a baseline assessment, against which progress
will have to be measured.

2. MAPPING THE SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS

a) Assessment of the physical capacity of irrigation structures to

perform their function of transport, control, measurement, etc.
2. SYSTEM CAPACITY
AND SENSITIVITY b) Assessment of sensitivity of irrigation structures (offtakes and
MAPPING regulators) and identification of singular points.
c) Mapping the sensitivity.

3. PERTURBATION Perturbations analysis: causes, magnitudes, frequency and options

ANALYSIS for copping with it.

a) Assessment of hierarchical structure and the main features

4. MAPPING WATER of irrigation and drainage networks, on the basis of which
NETWORKS AND partition of the system into sub-systems will be made.
WATER ACCOUNTING b) Water accounting exercise considering both surface and
groundwater and mapping their opportunities and constraints

3. MAPPING THE SERVICE: COST OF OPERATION AND DEMAND PER SUB-

COMMAND AREAS

5. MAPPING SERVICE Mapping options for services to users: farmers, crops and other
OPTIONS users.

Mapping the cost for current operation techniques and services,

6. MAPPING THE COST OF disaggregating the elements entering into the cost, costing options
OPERATION for various levels of services with current techniques and with
improved techniques.

a) Assessing means, opportunities and demand for canal

7. MAPPING THE operation.
DEMAND FOR CANAL b) A spatial analysis of the entire command area, with preliminary
OPERATION identification of Sub-Command Areas (Management, service,
etc).

— 43 —
4. DESIGN SUB-UNITS FOR SERVICE & OPERATION

Division of irrigation system and the command area into SUB-

8. PARTITIONING IN UNITS [sub-systems and/or sub-command areas] which are
MANAGEMENT UNITS homogeneous, and/or separate from one to the other with a singular
point or a particular borderline.

Identification of improvement options for each Management

9. CANAL OPERATION
Unit for (i) Water control (ii) Water management and (iii) Canal
IMPROVEMENTS
operation (service and cost-effectiveness).

5. AGGREGATING AND CONSOLIDATING

a) Aggregation of options at the system level, and consistency

10.AGGREGATING & check.
CONSOLIDATING b) Consolidating and designing an overall cost-effective
MANAGEMENT Information System for supporting operation and Service
Oriented Management (SOM).

A PLAN FOR a) Modernization strategy and progressive capacity development

MODERNIZATION
b) Select/choose/decide/phasing the options for improvements
And MON. & EVAL.
c) Plan for monitoring and evaluation of the project inputs and
outcomes.

MASSCOTE exercises were carried out in SMIP and NIS through which quantified
performances in terms of water delivery service at each canal level were determined.
Through field rating and analysis, major constraints of both these systems were
identified.

ANALYSIS OF IRRIGATION COSTS AND SERVICES

Another important part of the MASSCOTE exercise in the two systems was the analysis
of their irrigation cost and services. Analysis of cost of operation not only revealed the
cost-effectiveness of current operation and identified how it is affected by changes in the
different inputs (water, staff, energy, office, communication and transportation) but also
provided a good basis for cost-effectiveness of the improvements.

The estimated annual O&M cost for most large projects in the Terai was more than 400
Nepalese Rupees per hectare (NRs.400/ha) (US$1 = NRs72), with operation costs as shown
in Table 1 (DoI, 1996):

Table 1: Breakdown of Operation Costs for the Level of Infrastructure in SMIS, Nepal

— 44 —
 Operation Cost % of total Cost of
Component
(NRs./ha) Operations
Headworks 35 10
Main Canal 50 15
Secondary & Sub-secondary Canals 120 35
Tertiary Canals & Water Courses 125 40
Total 260 100

At that time, the project operation for the SMIS consumed an annual maintenance budget
of NRs. 770/ha (DOI, 2001). According to the then managers, the O&M cost in the SMIS
should be NRs. 1,500/ha, with NRs. 500 for operation and NRs. 1,000 for maintenance.
This amount would correspond to about 3.3 percent of the gross product in the command
area for 2005. According to Pradhan et al. (1998), it would correspond to about 10 percent
of the net income per hectare provided.

Part of the differences in the figures for O&M costs can be explained by inflation and by
the increase in cropping intensity from one irrigated crop per year (rice) to more than two
on average (the cropping intensity is currently 215 percent). With year-round irrigation,
the service is provided for a much longer period of time and the cost of O&M increases.
Therefore, a figure of NRs. 1,500/year for irrigation was considered for O&M.

This figure was compared with the cost to individual farmers of pumping groundwater. The
RAP estimated this cost at NRs. 2,000–3,000 per crop/season, meaning that two crops per
year would cost NRs. 4,000–6,000 with this type of supply (even more expensive where the
farmer has to rent the equipment). This O&M cost corresponded to the then service level,
which in many regards is not able to satisfy demand in winter and spring. Responding to
the users’ demand with more flexible service would demand an increment in inputs and
consequently result in higher annual O&M cost.

Many farmers that have poor service from a canal, or none at all, had moved to groundwater
pumping wherever it is accessible at a reasonable cost. Thus, they usually pay a high cost
for an adequate, reliable and flexible service. The cost of pumping varied with the context.
In Terai, Nepal, farmers spend NRs. 3,000 per season for rice. The average cost of energy
for pumping groundwater to cultivate sugarcane in one hectare is about NRs. 15,100 which
is much higher than the canal water fee of sugarcane in the project (see Figure 5). Therefore,
it seems reasonable to consider the option of upgraded service from surface supply allowing
two crops at about NRs.1,800/ha/yr (the increase being mainly due to operation). This cost
was expected to be acceptable to users provided that the service really improves.

— 45 —
Figure 5: Comparison of Costs (Cost Analysis during MASSCOTE Exercise)

Cost analysis was also carried out for NIS. With reference to the irrigated area, the cost of
operating the system is NRs. 233/ha. From the breakdown of the actual cost for different
levels and items, a rough estimation of the service cost was determined for two options:
Option 1 aimed mainly at improving water management and deliveries along the main canal
through tapping additional water from natural surface streams, an improved information
system and better operation. This option did not target much improvement within the
secondary CAs. The service (in terms of reliability and equity) to farmers would be only
slightly improved. The main system level inputs would be increased significantly to face
these challenges while some new allocation would be made in order to develop the local
management capacity in Block 13–15. Under this option, the cost of operating the system
would be about NRs. 244/ha.
Option 2 targeted Option 1 plus significant improvements in the service delivery to farmers,
which basically means two crops a year and improved reliability and equity. In order to
realize this option, an increase in the staff capacity at main canal level and increase in many
more inputs at the secondary canal level would be required. For this option, the cost of
operating the system would be about NRs 360/ha.
CONSEQUENCES AND RESULTS OF MASSCOTE EXERCISE IN NEPAL
The MASSCOTE exercises conducted in Nepal contributed both in terms of capacity
building and in terms of real actions. A total of 80 irrigation related professional
(27 during SMIP MASSCOTE, 24 during NIS MASSCOTTE and 29 during the
summing up exercise conducted in April 2006) received exposure to the tool. The
workshops were very useful in making the participants more analytical in their job
assignment instead of the ‘business as usual approach’.
Its impact was also in the form of actions in the ground. Modernization plans with different
options were developed through MASSCOTE exercises for both these systems. In the
consequent years the operation and maintenances works in those systems were carried
— 46 —
out very much along the lines of the recommendations of the MASSCOTE results. Due
to fund constraints, even though modernization plan could not be fully executed as in
SMIS, government made the funds available for NIS and option 1 recommendation of
MASCOTTE was executed during 2006 and 2007. The level of service is reported to have
significantly increased after the modernization works. Thus, the MASSCOTE exercise and
the consequent modernization plans were very useful in providing a guideline for increasing
cost-effectiveness of irrigation management in the two large irrigation systems in Nepal

REFERENCES

DOI, 2008. Human Resources Study of DOI. In Irrigation Newsletter, number 75.
Department of Irrigation. April-July 2008. Kalu, I. L., 2004. Need and Potential of Non-
Conventional Irrigation Technology, APTEC, Lalitpur, Nepal.

FAO of the UN, 2006. Modernization Strategy of Large Rice based Terai Irrigation Systems
of Nepal. Rome.

MOPE, 2002. Second National Report on the Implementation of the UN Convention to

Combat Desertification, Kathmandu, Nepal.

NPC, 1997. Statistical Data Profile of Participatory Database. Kaski District Development
Committee. Participatory district development programme. Kathmandu, Nepal.

Pradhan, P., 1989. Patterns of Irrigation Organizations in Nepal: A Comparative Study of

21. Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems. International Irrigation Management Institute.
Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Prasad, K., Thoreson, Bryan P., and David J. Molden, 2000. Tracing the History of the
Development and Management of Two Irrigation Systems in the Terai of Nepal. In
proceedings of the International Conference on “The Challenges Facing Irrigation and
Drainage in the New Millennium”, June 20-24, 2000. Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.

Prasad, Krishna C., Sijapati, S., Pradhan, P., Sharma, K. R. and Nicola Riddel, 1998.
Irrigation Service Fees in Nepal. IIMI and Research and Technology development Branch/
DOI, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Sijapati, S. and Krishna C. Prasad, 2005. Improving governance in Nepal’s water resources
sector through institutional changes. In proceedings of Third International Conference of
USCID, March 29-April 2, 2005, San Diego, USA. Pp. 141-151.

Ostrom E., 1990, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective
Action, Cambridge University Press.

WECS, 2003. National Water Resources Development Plan. Water and Energy Commission
Secretariat, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal, Singha Durbar, Kathmandu, Nepal.

— 47 —
— 48 —
 Evaluation of Canal Design Methods for Sediment
Transport
A Case Study of Sunsari Morang Irrigation Project

Krishna Prasad Paudel1

ABSTRACT

The design of a canal is a complex process of fixing its shape, slope and size based upon
various aspects like volume and quality of water to be conveyed, type of canal to be
constructed, the terrain through which it passes, socio-economic setting, climate, soil type,
etc. The process becomes more complicated when the boundary of the canal is erodible and
when the canal carries sediment with water.

In Nepal, the design manuals of the Department of Irrigation recommend Lacey’s regime
equations and White-Bettess-Paris tables with the Tractive Force equations for the design
of earthen canals carrying sediment. But in practice, there is no consistency in the design
approaches. The approaches have been found to vary from canal to canal even within the
same irrigation scheme.

Irrigation canals that carry sediment load are difficult to operate. Hence the design of the
canal for sediment transport should be an integrated approach of hydraulic calculations
that take care of well defined management plans. It is possible to improve the design, if
rational approaches, which explicitly use the influence of canal shape, management plans
and sediment parameters, are used. However, it is not possible to have a canal designed
for a specific water flow and sediment load to be non-silting and non-scouring for all the
discharges and sediment concentrations. Sediment transport modelling is a key tool, which
could be used for the precise representation of changes in management, hydraulic and
sediment parameters and their effect on the overall performance of the designed canal
system.

BACKGROUND

For countries like Nepal, with relatively young and fragile mountains, high intensity rainfall
patterns, agricultural activities on the sloping and marginal lands and rapidly shrinking

1 Consolidated Management Service Nepal (P) Ltd. G.P.O. Box 10872, Kathmandu, Nepal
Email:[email protected], [email protected]

— 49 —
forest areas, the sediment is an integral part of the river flows, which is difficult to be
excluded by the sediment removal arrangements in the headworks. Hence, irrigation canals
have to carry the sediment loads. The design of canals for sediment transport, in majority of
cases, is limited to using some empirical equations for computing canal geometry. The end
result, as expected, is unwanted erosion or deposition in the canal network, thus requiring
heavy investment for annual operation and maintenance.

Canal design for sediment transport requires long term and extensive database on sediment
inflow rate as well as sediment size distribution. Such data are rare and hence, the designers
have to depend on very few data collected during the survey. This may be one of the reasons
that the designed canal’s performance in terms of sediment transport is generally very poor.

In this paper, an evaluation of the canal design methods that are in use in Nepal and more
specifically in Sunsari Morang Irrigation Project (SMIP) are given. A more rational canal
design approach is proposed in terms of hydraulic calculations and the management aspect
that should be taken into consideration is also presented.

HYDRAULIC ASPECTS OF CANAL DESIGN

The purpose of the hydraulic design of canals is to determine the flow depth required to
pass a known discharge for a given geometry and roughness. Geometry of a canal is defined
by the bed width, side slope and bed slope. Hence, theoretically any of the three parameters,
i.e., bed width, side slope or bed slope can be varied to obtain a desired depth for a given
discharge. Since, it is not practical to construct a canal with varying side slope along its
length, it is normally taken constant unless the canal discharge is reduced significantly and
steeper slopes are possible to adopt. Hence, for a given condition (soil type, discharge) the
side slope is selected and taken as constant, while bed width and bed slope are taken as the
design parameters.

Similarly, roughness depends upon the flow conditions as well as on other factors like
type of construction material, quality of construction and/or maintenance, canal shape,
geometry and vegetation. Although the change in roughness will change the water depth
for a given canal geometry and discharge, it is not taken as design parameter. Roughness is
related qualitatively to the type and quality of the construction as well as the maintenance
work, but quantitatively it is not practical to specify a roughness and ask to construct or
maintain a canal accordingly.

EXISTING CANAL DESIGN APPROACHES IN NEPAL

Based on design considerations, irrigation canals in Nepal can be broadly divided into two
groups, canals in the hills and canals in the Terai (alluvial plain in the southern part). In the
design manuals for the design of unlined irrigation canals, generally two conditions have
been identified (Department of Irrigation, 1990a):

— 50 —
 i. Water flowing without sediment. For sizing the canals Manning’s equation is
recommended while for limiting the slope to prevent bed erosion tractive force
equations are recommended.

ii. Water flowing with sediment. In this case the manual suggests satisfying both the
non-scouring and non-silting criteria. For sizing the canals it is suggested to use
Manning’s equation for all canals in the hills and small canals in the Terai, while
Lacey’s regime formula (Lacey, 1930) or White-Bettess-Paris tables (White, et al.,
1981b) for large canals in the Terai. For limiting the slope or preventing erosion
in the bed tractive force equations are suggested. For computing the sediment
transport capacity Engelund and Hansen (Engelund and Hansen, 1966) or Ackers
and White (Ackers and White, 1973) equations are suggested.

The design manuals recommend that the use of Lacey’s equations should be restricted to the
areas where the sediment size and concentration is expected to be similar to those implicit
in the formulae. It is recommended that for large canals, a more thorough assessment of the
sediment balance should be carried out using quantitative formulae. No specific standards
have been setup so far, hence the constants and coefficients in the empirical equations are
selected on personal judgement.

CANAL DESIGN METHODS IN SMIP

Similar to other large scale irrigation scheme canals, the canal system of SMIP was also
designed using Lacey’s regime equations. This irrigation scheme faced severe sediment
deposition problems and during modernization the sediment transport aspect was also
given due importance in the design of canals. However, in the absence of clear and defined
guidelines for the design, different approaches have been used. During earlier phases (stage
I and II) of modernization, Lacey’s regime method (Method I) was used while later on
(stage III) the tractive force method with energy concept for preventing deposition was
used (Method II) (Department of Irrigation, 1987, 2003).

1. Method I

The set of Lacey’s regime equations used in the design and the values of the constants taken
are (Department of Irrigation, 1987):

(1)

(2)

(3)

— 51 —
 (4)

(5)

(6)

and x is given by

(7)

where

= water surface width (m)

B = bed width (m)

D = design water depth (m)

E = shape factor

e = width factor (taken 0.75 in SMIP)

f = silt factor (taken 1.0 in SMIP)

P = wetted perimeter

Q = design discharge (m3/s)

Sf = water surface slope (m/m)

V = mean flow velocity (m/s)

The regime theory postulates – “for a given discharge, sediment diameter and concentration
the width, depth, mean velocity and slope of a sediment transporting canal are uniquely
determined”. This statement is subject to the condition that the sediment is loose, incoherent,
the channel is active and the bed is in movement. That is, there is no restriction to the
formation of regime conditions. The major issues in the use of Lacey’s regime equations
are:

i. Implicit use of sediment parameters. The sediment size and concentration appear
— 52 —
 implicitly in the equations. Only the silt factor appears in the equation that is related
to mean sediment size (d50). There is a common consensus among the researchers
that more number of hydraulic and sediment related parameters, other than the
sediment size and discharge, have influence in the sediment transport process. The
disagreement, however, still exists on how much influence one parameter will have
over the others. That is the reason, the sediment transport capacity predicted by the
available predictors varies by a large margin for the same hydraulic and sediment
related parameters. In the regime equations, all sediment related variables are
included in a single parameter, the silt factor.

ii. Concept of incoherent alluvium and bed width. Most of the irrigation scheme in
Nepal pass through the terrain that cannot be considered to have unlimited envelope
of sediment identical to the transported sediment as assumed in the regime theory.
The regime width is constant for a given discharge and is independent of the type
of bank material. In practice, even the natural rivers with strong banks are narrower
than the ones with erodible banks. Hence, to achieve the regime conditions, the
banks should not offer any resistance. Such conditions are difficult to find in the
irrigation canals in Nepal.

iii. Introduction of flow control structures. For a canal to adjust its slope and width
and attain a regime condition an incoherent perimeter and a long reach without
any restriction to flow is needed. Such conditions are difficult to find in modern
irrigation canals. Even the old irrigation schemes, designed on a supply based
concept, are being converted to a demand based concept during modernization.
As a result, more of flow control structures are being added to regulate the flow to
meet the changing demand. Hence, there is hardly any possibility of attaining the
so called regime condition in present day irrigation canals.

iv. Changing water flow. Regime conditions assume canals to carry relatively constant
flows with little variation. The modern irrigation canals are highly demand based
and the discharge varies constantly within the irrigation season. It will be difficult
to assess sediment transport process in such canals using the regime theory.

v. Roughness implicit in other equations. The theory assumes that in a self formed
channel in loose sediment the roughness is implicit in the values of the hydraulic
mean depth and the slope it adopts. It is not clear how to compute the roughness of
a canal that is not in regime. Normally the irrigation canals have defined boundary
and the side slope and different protection and repair works are done to maintain
the side slopes that will definitely affect in the equivalent roughness of the canal
section. The effect is more pronounced in case of non-wide canals.

vi. More equations. As discussed above the hydraulic design of a canal is basically to
find the three variables; bed width (B), water depth (h) and bed slope (S0). Hence,
three equations are needed to find a unique solution. But, Lacey’s regime theory

— 53 —
 provides more than three equations. This creates confusion which of the three
equations should be taken in the design.

In Nepal, so far no studies have been made on how much deviation there is between
the predicted and actual stable canal parameters. However, in India the predicted values
deviated from actual stable canal values by 11 to 84%. Some adjustments have been made
in the regime equations to make them compatible with the local conditions. Examples of
such equations are that of Chitale’s best fit equations (Chitale, 1966) and the Irrigation
Research Institute, Roorkee equations for northern India (Varshney, et al., 1992). There
are so many variables involved in the sediment transport process and the Lacey’s regime
equations use so little parameters that it becomes difficult to make any tangible comparison,
between the conditions of the place of interest and the conditions where these equations
have been claimed to be successful.

Despite all the limitations in the equations, the design engineers in Nepal use the Lacey’s
regime equations for the design of canal mainly because they are simple and easy. Design
discharge and the mean sediment size are the only information needed to start the design.

2. Method II

The second approach used is based on the energy concept that states that the sediment
transport capacity (stream power) should be constant or non-decreasing in the downstream
direction. The basic principle of this method is that any sediment entering into the system
should be transported to the end without deposition in between. For the control of erosion
in the bed the shear stress is restricted to a certain safe limit.

In this approach, one of the three resistance equations (Chézy, Manning or Strickler) makes
the first equation. The bed width to water depth ratio (B-h ratio) makes the second equation.
In SMIP the values as shown in Table-1 have been used.

Table-1: B-h ratio and side slope for different discharges.

Flow range (Q m3/s) V:H B-h ratio

0.1 to 1.0 1:1 1 to 4
1.0 to 15.0 1:1.5 2.7 to 7
15.0 to 100.0 1:2 5.5 to 10

i. Check for erosion. For a given/assumed bed slope, the two equations are used to find the
water depth and bed width. The slope is then checked for erosion using the following
condition:

(8)

— 54 —
 where

= acceleration due to gravity (m/s2)

= water depth (m)

= bed slope (m/m)

= density of water (kg/m3)

= maximum tractive force (<3-5 N/m2)

ii. Check for suspended load. For controlling the deposition of suspended sediment, the
Vlugter (1962) energy concept has been used. It states that sediment particles will be
transported in any concentration by the flowing water when the fall velocity ( ) is less
than a certain threshold, given by:

(9)

Shoemaker (1983) used this concept and proposed the concept of stream power for
designing a canal with suspended sediment. The stream power is given by:

(10)

where

= stream power (W/m3)

= bed slope (m/m)

= mean velocity (m/s)

= density of water (kg/m3)

The energy of the main canal at the head of the off-take is computed and the off-take
canal is designed such that it would have energy at least equal to or more than the
energy of the main canal to ensure no sediment deposition. The criterion used to test
this condition is:

(11)

Comparatively, the energy approach is better as compared to the regime equations. In this
approach all the canals downstream of a point under consideration are related with each
other. The secondary canal’s transport capacity is determined by the transport capacity of
— 55 —
the main canal near the intake of the secondary canal. Similarly, the capacities of the sub-
secondary canals are related to the capacity of secondary canal and so on.

There are, however, some limitations of this approach in the design of canals that carry
appreciable amount of sediment:

i. Sediment transport rate only a function of velocity (V) and bed slope (S0). The majority
of irrigation canals are non-wide and trapezoidal in shape with the exception of small
and lined canals that may be rectangular. In a trapezoidal section the water depth
changes from point to point in the section and hence the shear stress. The effect would
be more pronounced if the bed width to water depth ratio (B-h ratio) is small. The
change in velocity distribution in a canal in view of the change in boundary shear
and water depth along the cross section will influence the sediment transport capacity
also. Hence, by relating the transport capacity with the velocity and bed slope only,
the major characteristics of an irrigation canal are ignored and the sediment transport
process is not completely described.

ii. Non-decreasing energy not the sufficient condition. The sediment transport predictors
are more sensitive to velocity as compared to the bed slope. Taking other variables
constant the exponent of velocity is equal to 5 for Engelund-Hansen, greater than 3
for Brownlie and greater than 4 for Ackers-White predictors. The slope parameter
does not appear explicitly in Ackers-White and Engelund-Hansen predictors while in
Brownlie the exponent to slope is 0.6. Hence, the transport capacity may not change
proportionally with change in VS0 for sediment load outside the De Vos assumptions
(fine sediment of size less than 70 μm). Discharge in irrigation canals decreases in
downstream direction, hence the roughness increases for the same canal shape and
bed material size and the velocity (V) decreases. The product VS0 can be maintained
constant or non-decreasing by three different methods:

− by changing the bed width while keeping the bed slope constant;

− by changing the bed slope while keeping the bed width constant;

− by changing both the bed width and bed slope.

The practical difficulty lies on the correct selection of method/option to get the constant
VS0. Sometimes, the topography restricts the change in slope while sometimes the bed
width has to be kept constant. Moreover, for a canal with the same constant energy
achieved by three different methods, the actual sediment transport capacity of the canal
will not be same. Hence, the non-decreasing energy criteria may be necessary but not
sufficient for preventing deposition in the canals.

iii. Extrapolation of the method for larger sediment size. The De Vos statement was for
very fine sediment (d ≤ 50 – 70 μm) and the assumption that it will be equally applicable
to larger sized sediment is not yet justified.
— 56 —
Apart from the limitation in the approaches used in the design, some canal systems that
were less problematic from sediment transport aspect are performing with less reliability
after modernization/rehabilitation. The major reasons are alteration of hydraulic behavior
of the canal due to the introduction of flow control structures to increase the flexibility of
the scheme.

RECOMMENDED CANAL DESIGN APPROACH

i. Holistic design concept: It is seldom possible to have the same sediment transport
capacity for all the canals in an irrigation scheme. One or more canals or one or more
reaches of a canal may have more sediment deposition problems as compared to others
for the given sediment load. One of the major problems in existing design approach is
to treat each canal as separate entity with no relationship with each other from sediment
transport capacity aspect.

Moreover, the design manuals suggest to design the main and secondary canals using
tractive force or regime concepts while lower order canals by simple Manning’s or
Chézy’s equations (Department of Irrigation, 1990a). This gives an impression that
the objective in the design from the sediment transport perspective is to transport the
sediment up to the end of the secondary canals. Since the design approach does not
include any specific plans and methods how the transported sediment is to be managed
after that point, the operation of such schemes is difficult.

The lower order canal should be linked with the higher order canal not only in terms
of hydraulic but also in sediment transport aspects. In the above methods, the sediment
parameters are implicit in the formulae; hence it is not possible to relate this aspect
during design. A rational approach that uses sediment characteristics explicitly will
have to be used.

ii. Prediction of roughness: The alluvial canals with sediment load will have bed forms
once the threshold of initiation of motion of bed material is reached. The present
approaches use constant roughness along the canal with single roughness value. The
reliability of design in terms of sediment transport increases, if the roughness to be
used for the design is estimated considering the bed forms for the designed hydraulic
conditions.

iii. Adaptation of sediment transport predictors: The sediment transport predictors assume
uniform velocity distribution and sediment transport across the cross section, similar
to that of the wide rivers. While using them in irrigation canals, two aspects should
be considered; the side slopes and the bed width to water depth ratio (B-h ratio). The
majority of the canals have a trapezoidal shape. Hence, the changing water depth on
the sides will have influence in the overall shear distribution along the perimeter. This
effect is more pronounced if the B-h ratio is small. Irrigation canals are non-wide in

— 57 —
 nature, in the majority of the cases the ratio of bed width to water depth is less than 8
(Dahmen, 1994). Hence, a correction should be made before using these equations for
irrigation canals to improve their predictability.

iv. Integration of water management plan: Irrigation schemes that carry a sediment load
need extra efforts to operate them properly. Two objectives have to be met simultaneously,
firstly to supply the water as per the demand or as per the previously agreed schedule
and secondly to ensure that the effects due to sedimentation/erosion are minimal.
Delivery of water as per the demand requires adjustment in the water level and flow
rate. The operation of control gates to manipulate the water level and discharge makes
the flow in the canal system unsteady and non-uniform and will affect in the sediment
transport behaviour. It is not possible to operate the scheme in a flexible way and also
to reduce the sedimentation problem at the same time. Hence a compromise has to be
made between the flexibility in water delivery and sediment deposition. The limitations
of such irrigation schemes in terms of service delivery have to be understood at the
time of design and accordingly operational plans should be prepared. Simply using
sediment transport formulae and determining best canal geometry without considering
water delivery plan and the resources and skills of the available management team and
its effect in the hydraulic behaviour, does not solve the problem.

v. Sediment Management: The sediment management aspect should be fully understood

and incorporated in the design. The design of a canal or reach of the canal for a certain
transport capacity may solve the problem of that reach but from management aspect
it is simply the shifting of the trouble from one place to another. It should be clearly
indicated what is the objective in terms of sediment transport. If the objective is to
transport the sediment down to the field then all the canals in the network should be
capable of transporting the sediment load.

To address the above mentioned issues, a rational canal design approach for sediment
transport has been proposed (Depeweg and Paudel, 2003). The proposed approach was
evaluated with the water delivery plan and sediment inflow data of two secondary canals
(S-9 and S-14) of Sunsari Morang Irrigation Project and was found that this approach
results in a efficient canal section as compared to the existing design approaches (Lacey’s
regime approach for S-9 and Energy approach in S-14) (Paudel, 2010). A simple computer
program DOCSET (Design of Canal for Sediment Transport) has also been prepared based
on the suggested approach that is being used for education purpose and is available for free.

CONCLUSION

The design of a canal is a complex process that has to satisfy different operational
requirements. Hydraulic calculations are based on a specific design discharge and sediment
characteristics for uniform flow. The design information are derived considering the water
requirement, sediment load in the river and the provisions of sediment removal facilities,
expected maintenance conditions and the proposed operation plan. The proposed design

— 58 —
approach, if used could produce more efficient and reliable canal in terms of hydraulic and
sediment transport aspects. However, it is not possible that a canal designed for a specific
water flow and sediment load to be non-silting and non-scouring for all the discharges
and sediment concentrations. Since the water flow and sediment concentration keep on
changing, it is unavoidable to have some deposition in one part of the irrigation season and
some erosion in the other. Hence, the design should be able to produce a system that has a
minimum net erosion/deposition at the end of the season. Hence, the design values of water
and sediment concentration may not be the maximum values that the canal is expected to
convey but those that produce minimum net erosion or deposition during one crop calendar
year.

For a given discharge and geometry the actual water depth in a canal under uniform flow
condition is decided by the roughness. Roughness keeps on changing throughout the canal
operation. The roughness in the bed will change with the change in flow conditions. The
roughness in the sides might change due to the growth of vegetation, weathering of canal
slopes and periodic maintenance activities. However, the canals have to be designed by
taking the average roughness expected during the irrigation season. Modelling provides an
option for a precise representation of these changes during the irrigation season that will
increase the reliability of predicted morphological changes and help in a better design from
sediment transport perspective.

A flow control system is needed in an irrigation scheme to manage the water flows at
bifurcations to meet the service criteria and standards regarding flexibility, reliability,
equity and adequacy of delivery. A flow is regulated through water level control, discharge
control, and/or volume control that make the flow non-uniform. For flows other than the
design values, the gates are operated to maintain the set-point and diverting the desired
water to the laterals. This will create drawdown or backwater effects and non-equilibrium
sediment transport conditions. The canals are designed assuming a steady and uniform flow
and an equilibrium sediment transport condition. The sediment transport equations used
in the design are not capable of predicting the sediment transport behaviour under non-
equilibrium conditions. Sediment transport models provide an option for predicting the
sediment transport process in time under changing flow conditions. Hence, a design should
be evaluated by using a sediment transport model and necessary changes should be made to
reduce the erosion/deposition. Hence, modelling should be the integral part of the design,
especially for major irrigation schemes and it will be helpful to:

− select the design discharge and sediment concentration that will give minimum net
erosion/deposition;

− incorporate in the design the changing nature of roughness due to changing hydraulic
and management conditions;

− include the effect of water delivery schedules and flow control in the design; and

− Prepare and propose the irrigation management plans.

— 59 —
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackers, P. and White, W. R.(1973) Sediment transport: new approach and analysis. Journal
of Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, 99(11)
Brownlie, W. R.(1981) Prediction of flow depth and sediment discharges in open channels.
Report No. KH-R-43A, W.M. Keck Laboratory of Hydraulic and Water Resources,
California Institute of Technology, California
Chitale, S. V.(1996) Coordination of Empirical and Rational Alluvial Canal Formulas.
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, 122(6)
Dahmen, E. R.(1994) Lecture Notes on Canal Design. IHE, International Institute for
Hydraulic, Infrastructure and Environment Engineering. Delft, The Netherlands
DOI, (1987) Design Report Volume I. Prepared by NIPPON KOEI for Sunsari Morang
Stage-II Irrigation Project, Ministry of Water Resources, Nepal
DOI, (2003) Design Report Vol-I, Main Report and Appendices. Prepared by NEDECO for
Sunsari Morang Irrigation Project Stage III (phase-I), Ministry of Water Resources, Nepal
Depeweg, H. and Paudel, K. P.(2003) Sediment Transport Problems in Nepal Evaluated by
the SETRIC Model. Irrigation and Drainage 52: 247-260
Engelund, F. and Hansen, E.(1967) A monograph on sediment transport in alluvial streams.
Teknisk Forlag, Copenhagen, Denmark
Lacey, G.(1930) Stable channels in alluvium. Proc. Institutions of Civil Engineers. London,
England. Vol. 229, 259-292.
Paudel, K. P.(2010) Role of Sediment in the Design and Management of Irrigation Canals.
CRC Press/Balkema: Leiden, the Netherlands.
Ranga Raju, K. G.(1981) Flow through open channels. Tata McGraw-Hill. New Delhi,
India.
Shoemaker, H. J.(1983) Dynamica van Morphologische Processen (in Dutch). Delft
University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Delft, the Netherlands
Varshney, R. S., Gupta, S. C. and Gupta, R. L.(1992) Theory and design of irrigation
structures, Volume-I, Channels and Tubewells (6th ed.). Nem Chand and Brothers. Roorkee
247667, India
Vlugter, H., (1962) Sediment transportation by running water and design of stable channels
in alluvial soils (in Dutch). De Ingenieur, The Hague, the Netherlands

— 60 —
 Assessment of climate change impacts on water
balances and crop yields
Pabitra Gurung1
Luna Bharati 2
Saroj Karki 3
Abstract:

The West Seti River basin is located in the far western region of Nepal and has a catchment
area of 7,438 km2 and annual rainfall of approximately 1921 mm. According to Siddiqui et
al., (2012) this basin is one of the most vulnerable in Nepal. The average elevation of the
basin is 2505 m but can vary from 314 m to 7043 m in the Api and Nampa high mountain
ranges. Agricultural land in this basin is categorized into three types: level terraces; slope
terraces; and, valleys. The major summer cereal crops in the basin are rice, maize and
millet and the major winter cereal crops are wheat and barley.

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to simulate water balances in different
cropping patterns under current and future climates. The results show that total precipitation
over rice, maize, millet, wheat and barley fields are 1002 mm, 818 mm, 788 mm, 186 mm
and 169 mm respectively whereas total simulated actual evapotranspiration (ET) are 534
mm, 452 mm, 322 mm, 138 mm and 177 mm respectively under current climate. Actual
ET will change by +0.7% in rice, +3.4% in maize, -3.4% in millet, +41.2% in wheat and
+36.2% in barley under future climate projections. Results show that yield of rice, maize
and millet will decrease by 10%, 7.9% and 26.1% whereas yield of wheat and barley will
increase by 7.8% and 5.8% respectively. Therefore, the impact of climate change shows
that summer crop yields will decrease and winter crop yields will increase.

Key Words: Water Balance, Hydrological Modeling, Climate Change, Crop Yields, SWAT

INTRODUCTION

The Himalayan region is considered sensitive to climate change (CC), and developing
countries, such as Nepal, are more vulnerable to CC because they have limited capacity
to adapt to it (IPCC 2001). The Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on
CC (IPCC 2007) states that due to increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for the next two decades for
a range of Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). The mountain regions of Nepal

1 International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Kathmandu, Nepal,

2 International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Kathmandu, Nepal,
3 Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal

— 61 —
are the major source of water storage in the form of ice and snow. Between 1977 and 2000,
the mean maximum temperature of Nepal increased by 0.06°C per year (Hua, 2009). The
rise in temperature will affect the hydrological cycle, which in turn will have an impact on
water availability, evapotranspiration, runoff and the discharge regime of rivers (Sayari et
al., 2011).

Water has been identified as the key resource for development and economic growth of
Nepal (WECS, 2011); therefore managing spatial and temporal water resources variability
is critical in river basins that are vulnerable to climate change. In Nepal, most of the
agricultural land in the hills and middle mountains depends on the rainfall and only few
lands have irrigation access from local streams. The irrigation water management should be
balanced with soil fertility management to increase the monsoonal crop yields and increasing
soil fertility without considering the irrigation could result in crop failure (Shrestha et al.,
2013). Consequently, agricultural production depends on the water availability in the local
streams; and on the amount and timing of rainfall. Therefore, the central idea of this paper
is to evaluate the impact of climate change on the soil water balance in the agricultural
lands of the West Seti River sub-basins and subsequently to measure change in the yields
of cereal crops. The spatially distributed agro-hydrological models are widely used to
simulate hydrological parameters and crop yields in the river basin scale. Thus Soil and
Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to simulate water balance and crop yields in this
study.

STUDY AREA: THE WEST RIVER SUB-BASIN

According to a study on climate change vulnerability in the middle and high mountain
regions of Nepal (Siddiqui et al., 2012), the West Seti sub-basin was identified as one of the
most vulnerable sub-basins in relation to climate change. The West Seti River Sub-basin
is located in the far western region of Nepal (Figure 1) and has a catchment area of 7,438
km2 and has confluence point with the Karnali River as the basin outlet. The sub-basin
originates from the snow fields and glaciers around the twin peaks of Api and Nampa in the
south facing slopes of the main Himalayas. The average elevation of the sub-basin is 2505
m but it varies from 314 m at sub-basin outlet, to 7043 m of Api and Nampa high mountain
ranges. The West Seti River is one of the major tributaries of Sapta Karnali River (the
longest river of Nepal). In the period of 1981 to 2010, the average annual rainfall within the
sub-basin was 1921 mm whereas seasonal precipitation was 137 mm in the winter; 261 mm
in the pre-monsoon; 1449 mm in the monsoon; and, 74 mm in the post-monsoon seasons.
Therefore, in this sub-basin almost 75% of annual rainfall occurred during the monsoon
season. In the period 1981-2010, the daily maximum temperature varied from -17.3°C
to +46.7°C and minimum temperature varied from -23.4°C to +31.3°C. The projected
climate result shows that the average daily maximum temperature will change by -0.62°C
to +0.66°C per decade and minimum temperature will change by -1.14°C to +0.03°C per
decade in this study area. This shows an average day becomes hotter and night becomes
colder.

— 62 —
Figure 1: West Set River Sub-basin/Sub-watersheds with location of hydro meteorological
stations

— 63 —
DATA AND SOURCES

Hydro-Meteorological Data

SWAT requires time series of observed climate data i.e. rainfall, minimum and maximum
temperature, solar radiation, wind speed and relative humidity. In this study, time series
climate data from 1981to 2010 from Department of Hydrology and Meteorological (DHM)
of Nepal was used for model input. In addition, daily observed hydrological data obtained
from DHM was used to calibrate and validate the model output. Altogether, data from 15
climate stations and 3 hydro stations was used for this study.

In this study, projected climate data from DHM (downscaled from PRECIS, and WRF
regional climate models) were used to model future scenarios. The downscaled climate
variables were based on the five global climate models (GCMs): ECHAM5, and HadCM3
in PRECIS; and, Era40, CCSM, ECHAM5, GFDL, and HadCM3 in WRF. The average
of projected climate data from these seven projections, under A1B scenario, was used to
assess climate change impacts. The projected climate time series data covered the periods
from 1971 to 2000 as base line and 2031 to 2060 as the future projection.

Spatial Data

SWAT requires three basic files for delineating the basin into sub-basins and hydrologic
response units: Digital Elevation Model (DEM); Soil map; and, Land Use/Land Cover
(LULC) map. The Advanced Space borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer
(ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model Version 2 (GDEM V2) with 1-arc second
(approximately 30 m at the equator) resolution is used for the DEM in this study. This
ASTER GDEM was jointly developed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry
(METI) of Japan and the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA). The sources of the land cover map and soil map are from National Land Use
Project (NLUP), Ministry of Land Reform and Management (MoLRM), Nepal.

Agricultural Data

Based on MoAC (2005), the crops considered in this study are: rice, maize, wheat, barley,
millet, potato, oilseed, sugarcane and vegetables. Agricultural fields in level terraces are
classified into rice (19%), millet (16%), sugarcane (1%) and vegetables (64%) whereas
agricultural fields in slope terraces are classified into maize (36%), oilseeds (6%), potato
(8%) and vegetables (50%). All the agricultural fields in river valleys are classified as rice
fields. Wheat and barley are considered as winter crops in rotation with summer crops such
as rice, maize, millet, oilseeds and vegetables; whereas sugarcane and potato do not contain
a second crop.

— 64 —
METHODS

Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)

SWAT is a process-based continuous hydrological model that predicts the impact of land
management practices on water, sediment and agricultural chemical yields in complex sub-
basins with varying soils, land use and management conditions (Arnold et al., 1998; Neitsch
et al., 2011; Srinivasan et al., 1998). The main components of the model include: climate,
hydrology, erosion, soil temperature, plant growth, nutrients, pesticides, land management,
and, channel and reservoir routing. Conceptually SWAT divides a basin into sub-basins.
Each sub-basin is connected through a stream channel and further divided in to Hydrologic
Response Unit (HRU). HRUs are a unique combination of a soil and a vegetation type
in a sub watershed, and SWAT simulates hydrology, vegetation growth, and management
practices at the HRU level.

The hydrologic cycle as simulated by SWAT is based on the water balance equation:

(1)

Where,

Since the model maintains a continuous water balance, the subdivision of the basin enables
the model to reflect differences in ET for various crops and soils. Thus, runoff is predicted
separately for each sub-basin and routed to obtain the total runoff for the basin. This
increases the accuracy and gives a much better physical description of the water balance.
More detailed descriptions of the model can be found in Arnold et al. (2011) and Neitsch
et al. (2011).

— 65 —
The SWAT model partitions crop yield from the total biomass on a daily basis (Arnold et
al., 2011). The partitioning is based on the fraction of the above-ground plant dry biomass
removed as dry economic yield and this fraction is known as harvest index (Neitsch et al.,
2011). The harvest and kill operation is enabled to evaluate the crop yields in the modeling.
The equations for the crop yield are;

when (2)

, when (3)

Where,

= Crop yield (kg/ha),

= Above-ground biomass on the day of harvest (kg/ha),

= Harvest index on the day of harvest, and

= Total plant biomass on the day of harvest (kg/ha)

In this study, the harvest index considered for optimal growing conditions are: rice,
0.50; maize, 0.50; millet, 0.25; wheat, 0.40; and, barley, 0.54. Whereas the harvest index
considered under highly stressed growing conditions are 0.25, 0.30, 0.10, 0.20, and 0.20 for
rice, maize, millet, wheat and barley respectively. The potential harvest index for a given
day is depend of the harvest index for the plant at maturity given ideal growing conditions
and the fraction of potential heat units accumulated for the plant (Neitsch et al., 2011). Thus
SWAT takes into account the change in harvest index for the crops when there is water
stress at certain phases of the crops. The equation for the actual harvest index in water
stress condition is;

(4)

(5)

Where,

= Actual harvest index,

= Harvest index for the plant in drought conditions,

— 66 —
 = Water deficiency factor,

= Amount of actual ET on day (mm),

= Amount of potential ET on day (mm),

= Day in the plant growing season, and

= Day in harvest

MODEL CALIBRATION AND VALIDATION

The stations and period considered for model calibration and validation are described in
Table 1. The model performance is determined by Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) with
respect to the daily and monthly observed flow data (Karki, 2012). The performance (Table
1) is acceptable as described by Liu and De Smedt (2004); and, Moriasi et al. (2007).
Whereas, the simulated crop yields are not validated due to lack of data therefore only
changes in crop yields are presented in this study.

Table 1: Hydrological Stations in the West Seti River Sub-basin and Model Performance (Karki, 2012)

Period Model Performance (%)

Station Calibration Validation
Calibration Validation
Daily Monthly Daily Monthly
Budhi Ganga, Chitreghat 2001-2003 2004-2006 73 90 60 78
Seti River, Gopaghat 1986-1990 1991-1995 67 86 54 90
West Seti, Banga 1981-1985 1986-1990 74 93 68 85

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Trend of Actual Evapotranspiration (ET) and Crop Yields

Figure 2 represents the correlation between simulated annual actual ET and crop yields
for the period from 1981 to 2010. This study considers three scenarios of crop rotations in
a year. They are;
Rice-Wheat-Vegetables rotation scenario,
Millet-Wheat rotation scenario, and
Maize-Barley rotation scenario

The study shows a positive correlation between actual ET and crop yields however, the
correlation coefficients are less than 0.50 in all crop rotation scenarios. In scenarios (a) and
(b), crop yields gradually increase with respect to increase in actual ET. Linear trend lines
show that the ratios of actual ET by crop yields are 0.95 and 0.84 in scenarios (a) and (b)
— 67 —
respectively. In contrary, the scenario (c) shows crop yields increase slightly with respect
to an abrupt increase in actual ET. Hence, the linear trend line shows that the ratio of actual
ET by crop yields is 3.52 in scenario (c).

Figure 3 illustrates the trend of change in actual ET and crop yields under the selected crop
rotation scenarios in the period from 1981 to 2010. Results show a declining trend of both
actual ET and crop yields in the simulation period. The trend of changes in crop yields is
following the trend of change in actual ET in all crop rotation scenarios.

Figure 2: Correlation between Simulated Annual Actual Evapotranspiration (ET) and

Crop Yields under Selected Crop Rotation Scenarios for 1981-2010 Periods

— 68 —
Figure 3: Actual Evapotranspiration (ET) and Crop Yields Trend under Selected Crop
Rotation Scenarios for 1981-2010 Periods

Water Balance and Crop Yields

As afore mentioned, the model runs from 1981 to 2010 with daily climate data and the
outcome of this study represents average results over a 30 year period as a current climate
scenario. The model result shows that total precipitation over rice, maize, millet, wheat
and barley fields are 1002 mm, 818 mm, 788 mm, 186 mm and 169 mm respectively
whereas total simulated actual ET are 534 mm, 452 mm, 322 mm, 138 mm and 177 mm
respectively under the current climate (Table 2). Similarly, simulated surface runoff from
the crop fields and crop yields are presented in the Table 2. In the study, the total surface
water yields are validated with the observed river flows however the simulated crop yields

— 69 —
are not validated as there are no available data which spatially covers over the study area.
All the crops are considered as rain-fed and the auto-irrigation option of model is enabled
in the simulation. In auto-irrigation option, the model will automatically apply water up to
a maximum amount whenever there is water stress in crops (Neitsch et al., 2011). Hence
this study only looked into how climate change will impact on the crop yields with default
parameters of the model and by auto-application of irrigation.

Table 2: Simulated Water Balance and Crop Yields under Current Climate

Summer Crop Winter Crop

Variables
Rice Maize Millet Wheat Barley
Precipitation (mm) 1002 818 788 186 169
Actual ET (mm) 534 452 322 138 177
Surface Runoff (mm) 235 175 170 7 10
Crop Yields (Tons/km2) 54 83 15 45 29

Impact of Climate Change on Water Balance and Crop Yields

The climate change impact study is assessed by comparing between the model results of
baseline (from 1971 to 2000) and future projections (from 2031 to 2060). The model results
show that the total precipitation will change by -4.4% in rice, +0.5% in maize, -9.5% in
millet, +37.3% in wheat, and +30.6% in barley fields. Similarly, actual ET will change by
+0.7% in rice, +3.4% in maize, -3.4% in millet, +41.2% in wheat, and +36.2% in barley,
under future climate projections. Actual ET will increase in all crops except in millet
because water availability will decrease in the millet fields. The linear correlation will occur
in the percentage change between precipitation and actual ET; and, between crops yield and
actual ET (Figure 4). However, the correlation equations between actual ET and crop yields
are different between summer and winter crop (Figure 4). The change in surface runoff on
the crop fields is presented in the Table 3. Whereas the impact of climate change results
show that crop yields from rice, maize and millet will decrease by 10%, 7.9% and 26.1%
respectively, the yield of wheat and barley will increase by 7.8% and 5.8% respectively
under future climate. The precipitation on the summer crops will decrease, except in maize
which will impact negatively on the crop yields (Table 3). Whereas, precipitation on the
winter crops will increase and this will lead to an increase in crop yields. Hence, the impact
of climate change shows that summer crop yields will decrease and winter crop yields will
increase. Therefore, the changes in amount of precipitation will impact on the actual ET,
and then on the crop yields.

— 70 —
Table 3: Percentage Change in Simulated Water Balance and Crop Yields under Future Climate

Summer Crop Winter Crop

Variables
Rice Maize Millet Wheat Barley
Precipitation -4.4% +0.5% -9.5% +37.3% +30.6%
Actual ET +0.7% +3.4% -3.4% +41.2% +36.2%
Surface Runoff -12.6% -6.3% -16.9% +21.9% +18.1%
Crop Yields -10.0% -7.9% -26.1% +7.8% +5.8%

Figure 4: Correlation of Percentage Change between Precipitation and Actual ET, and between Crop Yields
and Actual ET under Future Climate Scenario

— 71 —
CONCLUSION

The result of the model simulation under current climate conditions shows declining trends
of actual ET and crop yields in this study area. The projected model results show that
summer precipitation will decrease except on the maize fields and winter precipitation will
increase; whereas actual ET will increase for all crops except in millet under future climate
scenario. As a result, summer crop yields will decrease and winter crop yields will increase
under projected climate change scenarios. However, there is large degree of uncertainty
in the simulated results due to disagreement among the projected future climate scenarios
(Bharati et al., 2012) and this uncertainty can reliably be reduced by using only a selection
of GCMs that shows high inter-model similarity for the current and future climate (Sperna
Weiland et al., 2012).

The SWAT model is found to be a good tool to simulate the water balances and crop yields
under current and future climate scenarios. However, the model’s performance will depend
on the model inputs and availability of observed data to validate output. In this study,
simulated water balance components are more precise due to the availability of observed
river flow data. Whereas, due to unavailability of spatially coverage of crop yields data,
the study is confident to present only changes in crop yields under future climate scenario.

REFERENCES

Arnold, J. G., Kiniry, J. R., Srinivasan, R., Williams, J. R., Haney, E. B., and Neitsch,
S. L. (2011) Soil and Water Assessment Tool Input/Output File Documentation Version
2009. Texas Water Resources Institute Technical Report No. 365, Texas A&M University
System, College Station, Texas.
Arnold, J. G., R. Srinivasan, R. S. Muttiah, and J. R. Williams (1998) Large area hydrologic
modeling and assessment, Part I: Model development. Journal of the American Water
Resources Association. 34(1): 73 – 89.
Bharati, L., P. Gurung, and P. Jayakody (2012) Hydrologic Characterization of the Koshi
Basin and the Impact of Climate Change. Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and
Environment. Special issue on “Proceedings of National Conference on Water, Food
Security and Climate Change in Nepal”. 23 – 29.
Hua, O (2009) The Himalayas - water storage under threat. Water Storage - A strategy for
climate change adaptation in the Himalayas. Sustainable Mountain Development No. 56,
ICIMOD. 3 - 5.
IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution
of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
IPCC ( 2001) J. McCarthy; O. Canziani ; N. Leary ; D. Dokken and K. White (eds) in

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Cimate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnareability. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Karki, S (2012) Application of uncertainty analysis techniques to SWAT model: a case study
of West Seti River basin, Nepal. MSc thesis. Department of Civil Engineering, Institute of
Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Tribhuvan University, Nepal.
Liu, Y.B., and F. De Smedt. (2004) WetSpa Extension, Documentation and User Manual.
Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
108p.
Moriasi, D.N., J. G. Arnold, M. W. van Liew, R. L. Bingner, R. D. Harmel, and T. L.
Veith. (2007) Model Evaluation Guidelines for Systematic Quantification of Accuracy in
Watershed Simulations. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. 50(3):
885-900.
MoAC (2005) Statistical Information on Nepalese Agriculture (Time Series Information).
Agri Statistics Section, Agri-Business Promotion and Statistics Division, Ministry of
Agriculture and Co-operatives (MoAC), Government of Nepal.
Neitsch, S.L., J. G. Arnold, J. R. Kiniry, and J. R. Williams (2011) Soil and Water Assessment
Tool Theoretical Documentation Version 2009. Texas Water Resources Institute Technical
Report No. 406, Texas A&M University System, College Station, Texas.
Sayari, N., M. Bannayan, A. Farid, A. Alizadeh, and M. R. H. Kermani (2011) Crop Water
Consumption and Crop Yield Prediction under Climate Change Conditions at Northest of
Iran, International Conference on Environmental and Computer Science. IACSIT Press,
Singapore. IPCBEE. 19: 112 – 117.
Shrestha, N., D. Raes, E. Vanuytrecht, and S. K. Sah, S.K. (2013) Cereal yield stabilization
in Terai (Nepal) by water and soil fertility management modeling, Agricultural Water
Management. 122: 53 – 62.
Siddiqui, S., L. Bharati, M. Panta, P. Gurung, B. Rakhal, and L. D. Maharjan (2012) Nepal:
Building Climate Resilience in Watersheds in Mountain Eco-Regions. Technical Assistance
Consultant’s Report for Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Management
(DSCWM), Government of Nepal. International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
Sperna Weiland, F. C., L. P. H. van Beek, A. H. Weerts, and M. F. P. Bierkens (2012)
Extracting information from an ensemble of GCMs to reliably assess future global runoff
change. Journal of Hydrology. 412-413: 66 – 75.
Srinivasan, R., T. S. Ramanarayanan, J. G. Arnold, and S. T. Bednarz (1998) Large area
hydrologic modeling and assessment Part II: Model application. Journal of the American
Water Resources Association. 34(1): 91 – 101.
WECS (2011) Water resources of Nepal in the context of climate change, Water and Energy
Commission Secretariat, Government of Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal.

— 73 —
— 74 —
 Improved food security and income for small
farmers through pond irrigation

Er. Susan Shakya1

Pond irrigation systems: These are new irrigation systems which are usually situated in
comparatively higher and colder areas (~ 1600 masl in average), highly potential for fresh
vegetable farming. Fresh vegetables are cash crops that can increase income of farmers by
far more that of cereal crops in a given area of land compared to cereal crops like wheat,
maize, millet or paddy, provided market linkages are established. In this type of system
water is collected in pond which is lined and sealed with sheet membranes. The sheets
are water proof, resilient to harsh weather conditions; less affected by earth-movements,
affordable for small farmers and can be easily repaired in case of small tears and replaced
in case of damage. The water is conveyed to pond from springs or streams by means of
pipes through gravity flow. Once the water is brought to farmers’ land from distant water
sources, the farmers are usually smart to utilize water efficiently. Since this type of system
is often built in water deficit areas, farmers need to distribute water on equal basis, provide
labor force equally for construction and contribute to operation and maintenance fund
equally.

The pond irrigation system is implemented in selected food deficit areas in Nepal’s
rural central-eastern and mid- & far-western regions in seven districts as mentioned
above through HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal with financial support of Swiss
Development Cooperation. They are hill areas, altitude ranging from 500 m to 2000 m
above sea level. The size of pond practiced are 15, 30, 45 and 60 cubic meters which
depends upon available water and proposed command area.

The potentiality of replication is proven as the pond irrigation technology is recognized by

government bodies and “one village one pond” programme announced. The technology is
also adapted by Community Irrigation Project (CIP) which is funded by ADB and is active
in 12 other districts of Nepal.

Since the technology is simple, affordable and can bring significant difference in the
livelihood of small farmers, local government bodies have shown interest to adapt pond
technology. Some farmers have been practicing the technology for 5 years and have become
one of the major sources of income.

1 Technical Coordinator, LILI HELVETAS Swiss cooperation Nepal

— 75 —
The main factors of success are:

The technology is simple to understand and implement by local technicians and farmers.

It is a low-cost technology having a high probability of economic benefits.

The technology is suitable for hill areas which account for more than 50% of the land
area in Nepal.

The technology is appropriate for small farmers striving for additional income from
their small land.

The technology is environment friendly.

INTRODUCTION

The Nepalese economy is dominated by agriculture as the main source of food, income,
and employment for the majority in the country. To increase agricultural production,
the Nepalese Government promotes irrigation, the use of fertilizers and insecticides, the
introduction of new seeds of better adapted and high-yield varieties, and the provision of
credit. A considerable gap exists in the provision of irrigation facilities in the hill areas,
where only about 27% of irrigable land is irrigated. In rural areas, the prevailing socio-
economic exclusion and inappropriate land use combined with discriminatory land tenant
systems have a negative impact on the livelihood conditions of marginalized and small
farmers2. In order to address the increased pressure on rural livelihoods and some of the
issues raised above, LILI3 (Local Infrastructure for Livelihood Improvement Project) was
conceived in 2004 by HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal with the objective to
improve food security and income by providing better access to water for irrigation to poor
farmers with predominantly marginal landholding in selected food deficit areas of Nepal’s
rural central-eastern and mid- & far-western regions in seven districts.

Pond Irrigation System:

Pond irrigation systems are non conventional type of Irrigation system practiced in water
scarce area of mid hills focusing high value crops eg seasonal/off-seasonal vegetables. The
system comprises intake at the water sources (mostly perennial spring source), pipe lines
and pipes from intake site to near the pond sites, flow regulating chambers to distribute
the water proportionately to different ponds, ponds 2-5 in number as per the need, water
distribution post as outlets for irrigation.

2 Small Farmer: Farmer having land less than 0.5 ha

3 LILI: Local Infrastructure for Livelihood Improvement Project, Project funded by Swiss
Development Cooperation (SCD Nepal)
— 76 —
Figure 1: A typical layout of Pond Irrigation System

In pond irrigation system water is collected in ponds excavated at the field and lined
with water-resistant membrane (200 GSM SILPAULIN sheet membranes). The water is
conveyed to pond from spring or stream as gravity flow by means of HDE pipes. Once the
water is brought to farmers' land from distant water sources, the farmers can utilize it as per
their agricultural plan and water sharing policies. The pond irrigation systems can be easily
constructed at the regular but small water sources exist above the farm land. The size of
pond practiced are 15, 30, 45 and 60 cubic meters which depends upon available water and
proposed command area.

Figure 3: Pond with soil cement jute bag lining Figure 2: Excavated Pond with Lined

— 77 —
The excavated pond is lined with 200 GSM4 Silpulin sheet. The Silpaulin sheet is water
proof, resilient to harsh weather conditions, less affected by earth-movements, affordable
for small farmers, easy to repair in case of small tears and replaceable in case of damage.
Life of the Silpaulin membrane sheet is generally claimed to be at least 10 years with the
exposed of sun. Although, certain cautions are needed to care from damage of Silpaulin
sheet caused by hitting the solid objects to the empty pond and firing. However, the
punctured silpaulin membranes can also be repaired by sticking pieces of similar sheets
with adhesives supplied, Soil Cement Jute bag5 lining over Silpaulin sheet is more safe and
favored by farmer.

FOOD SECURITY AND INCOME

Nepal being predominantly agricultural country with subsistence types of agriculture,

above 65% of the farmers adopt traditional agricultural pattern with traditional water
management practices. Meantime Nepal has huge discrepancy in land occupation by the
peasant farmers. More lands are occupied by less people, i.e. about 5% farmers owing 37%
of total agricultural land against 47% of the farmers owning just 15 % of land (http://www.
ngofederation.org/index ), similarly, the major water sources are well captured and utilized
by the rich farmers. Thus land and water availability is highly skewed fostering inequality
among the Nepalese Society. The poor and small land holding farmers are often suffering
from social and cultural conflicts on water right issues. There are various efforts made from
public and other development agencies to increase the irrigation water availability with
harmonized social harmony in a participatory way. The Pond Irrigation system is focusing
to small farmers residing hilly areas in scattered way. The system is highly potential for
fresh vegetable farming, seasonal and off-seasonal. Fresh vegetables are cash crops that
can increase income of farmers by far more that of cereal crops in a given area of land
compared to cereal crops like wheat, maize, millet or paddy, provided market linkages are
established

The study report of LILI HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal revealed that the Pond
Irrigation Systems are more favorable in comparison to conventional type Canal Irrigation
system for small farmers in terms of increase in cropping intensity, farm income and
beneficiaries coverage. This paper highlights the success of small land holding farmers
in managing scarce water sources through pond irrigation system and increase their food
security and income.

This study is the analysis of 308 small irrigation schemes completed in different region of
Nepal with the support of LILI HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal within the period
of three years (2009 to 2012). Total out 308 small irrigation schemes 112 schemes are
Canal Irrigation system and remaining 196 schemes are Pond Irrigation system. The study
showed that the coverage of DAGs6 as beneficiaries in pond irrigation system is more than

4 GSM: Gram per square meter (represent the thickness of Silpaulin sheet)
5 Soil Cement Jute bag: Jute bags filled with mixture of soil cement in about 1:12 ratio to protect Silpulin
6 DAG: Disadvantaged Group
— 78 —
in Canal Irrigation System. In Pond Irrigation System about 58% beneficiaries are belongs
to DAG but in Canal Irrigation system only 47% beneficiaries are DAG. Likewise the
beneficiaries having less land are more in Pond Irrigation System than in Canal Irrigation
System. The average size of land per households in Pond Irrigation system are about 2.2
Ropani but in the case of Canal Irrigation System the average size of land is about 4.12
Ropani.

Figure 5: Land Holding per HHs (Ropani) Figure 4: Beneficiaries coverage (HHs)

The study also revealed that the increase of cropping intensity in comparison with the
base line survey (without irrigation facility) is almost same about 40 % in Pond and Canal
Irrigation system. In spite of almost same increase of cropping intensity the farm income
in the case of Pond Irrigation system is much higher than in Canal Irrigation system. The
regular irrigation water availability at bari land nearby resident supported to adopt new
cash crops mainly off season vegetables to increase their income per Ropani land by NRS
630/- in average than in Canal Irrigation system.

Cropping intensity Net Income

Types of
Year
schemes Baseline survey Outcome Monitoring survey (Rs/ Rop.)

Pond 162% 216% 4320

2011/12
Canal 150% 195% 3867

Pond 187% 227 % 2'191

2010/11
Canal 150% 200% 1,779

Pond 218% 250 % 3,047

2009/10
Canal 196% 222 % 2,018

Figure 6: Cropping Intensity & Net Income per Ropani land

— 79 —
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The Pond Irrigation system may be the best option in hill areas because the flow of water
from source to pond is gravity-flow and is conveyed by means of pipe. The climate in
these areas of Nepal is suitable for both season and off-season vegetable farming. The
farmers of these areas work extremely hard to earn their living and also opt for seasonal
migration to India for earning. With the available small land, usually less than half a hectare,
the technology would be a boon for making a better living for small farmers, provided
agricultural services are imparted for initiating optimal cropping pattern and higher yields.
Market linkages are crucial for ultimately improving livelihoods.

Pond Irrigation system serves the most vulnerable groups of the society mainly, women,
Dalit and Janjati community who otherwise have no other livelihood options than the
agriculture in their settlement. To upscale this solution, the technology should be incorporated
in governments’ plan and policy. Trainings related to technology should be provided to
authorities of government bodies at local and national level but also disseminated with
farmers, other governmental and non-governmental organizations and donor agencies
world-wide. A harmonized planning process and implementation modality should be
agreed among major stakeholders to ensure that supports are received by the needy ones.

BIBLOGRAPHY

LILI, Survey Cost Estimate and Design Report of Small Irrigation Schemes

LILI, Project Document

LILI, Annual Report

LILI, Outcome Monitoring Report

— 80 —
 Economics of Irrigated Crops: Major Indicators
for modernization and commercialization of
Agriculture
Tulasi Gautam 1

Abstract

This paper assesses economics of irrigated crops comparing traditional Vs high value
crops. Profitability is the main indicator for commercialization and shifting from
traditional practices into new technology can be termed as the modernization. For the
technology adoption, irrigation is vital component. Realizing this fact, Nepal government
has allocated more budgets in irrigation to enhance both agriculture production and
productivity in Nepal. However, Year Round Irrigation covers only 18 per cent despite the
seasonal irrigated area. This seasonal irrigated area is reported to be 1254000 hectare.
By ecological distribution, Terai shares 81 per cent followed by mid- hills (15%) and
High- hills (4%). This is because of limited low land area for surface irrigation. For
these mid-hills and high-hills, Non Conventional Irrigation Technology (NCIT) is more
suited. Such irrigation technology should be expanded in upland hills while integrating
market oriented agriculture products based on climate changing environment. Farmers of
Okhreni VDC of Ramechhap district and Panena VDC of Arghakhanchi district are shifted
from maize to vegetable and mandarin–orange production through pond and sprinkler
irrigation .These are illustrative examples of modernization and commercialization.
Such practices are found in other hill areas too. The efficient use of scarce water in the
hills can be taken as a lesson for Terai and other Valley areas of hills. The economics of
irrigation has been assessed analysing benefit cost ratio and crop productivity along with
market prices. These could be taken as the major indicators for the modernization and
commercialization of agriculture sector. However, these needs mandatory in irrigation and
improved agriculture programs for more productive investment in these sectors. Indeed,
irrigation can contribute to enhance agricultural production if it is properly integrated as
a part of agriculture development package. This statement envisaged in Nepal Agriculture
Sector Strategy 1982 is still valid. Policy recommendations are implementation of land
use policy( Irrigated land should not be used in housing, industries, other settlements
and fish pond construction), there needs strong mandatory of integration of irrigation
and agricultural extension technology program, Need to establish one apex body to look
for irrigation system by restructuring the existing organizational structures. And need to
update statistical information on irrigation coverage, cropping intensity, productivity, food
security and livelihood issues based on irrigation.

1 Agri economist

— 81 —
 PxL 7fdd] cWoog h?/L gxL yL s . oL ;a a]sf/ lys cfjZostf
c5L t s]jn l;rfOs] . cWoog d] ht]s vr{ nfut ttsd] t
PxL 7fdd] l;rfO e hfot .
@)#( df wg'iff O6x/jf ! sf ls;fgsf] egfO{
ls;fgsf] cf;, lasf;] k|of; , t'n;L uf}td sflGtk'/ , @)^#=!@=!&

INTRODUCTION

Irrigation is considered as the pre-condition for agricultural prosperity as strongly felt

by farmers and government. This is because of the fact that it allows agriculture for the
intensification and diversification through technology transformation. Realizing this fact,
government has taken responsibility to provide irrigation facilities to the farmers as a
public good. The reason behind this is that agriculture is the way of life for the majority of
population in terms of livelihood, employment and income. These are small farmers having
poor infrastructure of irrigation. They need strong support in the construction of irrigation
cannels and dams, which requires heavy investment. The total irrigated area is estimated
to be 1254000 hectare land in 2012, this is some lower than targeted coverage-1400000
hectares under Three Years Plan in 2012/13. The potential irrigated area is estimated
to be 1700 thousands ha. However, the irrigation and agricultural updated statistics are
questionable requiring correction. Housing construction, fish pond construction, other
settlements, establishment of industries etc have further encroached irrigated areas ignoring
land use policy of Nepal. The seasonal and year-round irrigation coverage, area covered
by crops is often questionable statistics. Yet, there is no other option for the correction at
present. For this, statistical correction techniques should be explored while sharing the
ideas and use of satellite. In the present available information basis, Terai shares highest
coverage i. e 81 per cent followed by Mid-Hills 15% and High-hills 4% respectively.
Reasons for low irrigated land area in the Hills and Mountain Region are due to limited
low land area for surface irrigation. For these mid-hills and high-hills, Non Conventional
Irrigation Technology (NCIT) is more suited.Such irrigation technology can be expanded
in upland hills while integrating market oriented agriculture products based on climate
changing environment.

In the basis of development region, Eastern region shares 33 per cent of the irrigated land,
which seems highest compared to other regions. The Central region shares 32%, Western
region 16%, Mid Western 11% and Far Western region 9% respectively. This paper
highlights irrigation contribution to agriculture for modernization and commercialization.
There are some macro level indicators in terms of economics of irrigation.

— 82 —
INVESTMENT ON IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE

Irrigation, being the major input for crop production, it has received more budgets compared
to agriculture in Government plans and programs. The following table itself depicts the
volume of Government expenditure on irrigation and agricultural programs.

Table 1: Government Expenditure on Irrigation and Agricultural Programs during 1984/85 to

2010/11

SN Sector Amount(Million Rs)

1 Irriga on 78982.3
Agriculture 71448.3

Source: Agricultural Statistical Information on Nepalese Agriculture, Ministry of

Agriculture Development, Government of Nepal.

MODERNIZATION AND COMMERCIALIZATION OF AGRICULTURE: A CASE

OF VEGETABLE PRODUCTION IN NEPAL

Agriculture technology is highly responsive to irrigation. The shift from traditional to

modern agriculture mostly depends on irrigation. In this respect, farmers are growing
improved crops. Cropping intensity has been increased up to triple crops from mono
crops. Also crops are replaced based on comparative advantage given market assurance.
Now, vegetable area is increasing, where irrigation facilities are available. The area under
vegetables is increasing steady in Terai compared to Mid-hills. Least expansion is found in
the high hills constraint to mainly irrigation and climatic conditions. The following Chart
illustrates the expansion of vegetable area by ecological reason over the time period.

Figure 1: Vegetable Area Expansion by development region over the period

— 83 —
In those areas, where surface and ground water irrigation is not feasible, NCIT is introduced.
The sprinkler and pond irrigation in the hills has direct impact on modernization and
commercialization of agriculture. For instance, farmers in Panena VDC of Arghakhanchi
district are shifted from maize to vegetable and mandarin –orange production using sprinkler
irrigation. According to key informants, out of 42 households, 38 households have replaced
mandarin–orange and vegetables instead of maize crop in their uplands. Similarly, in
Okhreni VDC ,Katunje of Ramechhap district, pond irrigation has modernized traditional
agriculture into the commercial one. The farmers of this area grow three times vegetable
crops in a year based on market situation. Sweet- orange is another perennial crop for them.
In both areas, maize became secondary crop. Thus, in both areas, commercialization has
been taking place and socio-economic improvement has been clearly observed. These are
some illustrative examples of modernization and commercialization through the provision
of irrigation facility. Such practices are found in other hill areas too. The efficient use of
scarce water in the hills can be taken as a lesson for Tarai and other Valley areas of hills.

Impact Study on small irrigation managed by farmers under Department of Agriculture

(DOA) in 2010/11 shows increase frequency of crops for a year and enables farmers to use
agriculture technology. As the result, average household (HH) income has increased by
30 per cent. Similarly, the average number of food availability in a year had been changed
from 7.79 to 11.51 months and about 7 per cent of the HHs was not sending any children to
school has started to send school.

Similarly, cost of production of major crops conducted by the Marketing Research and
Statistics Management Program of DOA shows profitability level of different crops at
farmers’ practice. Benefit-cost ratio analysis known as B/C Ratio gives return to investment.
This ratio shows that a rupee invested today yields worth of rupee. If there is 3.5 B/C
ratios, this means, a rupee invested yields Rs.3.5. Higher the ratio, higher the return to
the investment is denoted. Thus, irrigation is important for productivity and technology
adoption. In other words, more productivity means lesser cost of production, and more
income. So farmers are saying to the state ˝Give irrigation and technology and take the
production”. However there are three Ministries in Nepal looking for irrigation; large and
medium irrigation by Ministry of Irrigation (MOI), small by Ministry of Local Development
(MOLD), and farm level by Ministry of Agriculture Development (MOAD). In some cases,
there seems duplication of the activities and lack of coordination between agricultural
extension technology and irrigation program. It should be mandatory. In Sunsari- Morang
irrigation command area, shallow tube wells in Sunsari district are installed. This should be
considered as the policy issue. Yet, irrigation is the most for farmers for the intensification
and modernization of farm practices.

Table below shows vegetables yields more return to investment compared to cereal crops.
Even in the vegetables, off-season carrot in Rupandehi district paid highest return to the
investment.

Table 2: B/C Ratio of Different Crops

— 84 —
 Crops B/C Ratio
Paddy Terai 1.38
Paddy Hill 1.31
Wheat Terai 1.36
Wheat Hill 1.29
Carrot off-season (Rupandehi) 8.60
Carrot main season 3.96
Pea main season 2.20
Tomato 3.78
Cauli main season 3.01
Cauli off-season 3.78
Capsicum 3.31

The impact of irrigation can be judged from the productivity and market value measures.
More production per unit of land means lesser cost of production. Table below illustrates
both productivity and market values even in irrigated conditions indicating technological
intervention options under the given environment. Here is the case of choices of crops to
be grown.

Table 3: Productivity and Price

Crops Production (Kg/ha) Price (Rs./Kg)

PaddyTerai 3910 15
Wheat Terai 3301 18
Paddy Hill 3465 15
Wheat hill 3253 18
Carrot Off Season 15945 39
Carrot main season 15914 18
Pea main season 15785 16
Tomato 20631 21
Cauli Main Season 18763 17
Cauli offs 29418 12
Capsicum 18946 16

— 85 —
CONCLUSION

These analyses strongly show economics of irrigation to modernize and commercialize

agriculture sector. However, these needs mandatory in irrigation and improved agriculture
programs for more productive investment in these sectors. “Indeed, irrigation can contribute
to enhance agricultural production if it is properly integrated as a part of agriculture
development package.’’ This statement envisaged in Nepal Agriculture Sector Strategy
1982 is still valid.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Land use policy: Irrigated land should not be used in housing and fish pond
construction.

2. There needs strong mandatory of integration of irrigation and agricultural extension

technology program.

3. Need to establish one Apex Body to look for irrigation system by restructuring the
existing organizational structures.

4. Need to update statistical information on irrigation coverage, cropping intensity,

productivity, food security and livelihood issues based on irrigation.s

— 86 —
 IWRM: Status in some of the river basins in Asia

Ashish Bhadra Khanal 1

Abstract

Modernization and rise of the population globally in twentieth century putting pressure
on the fresh water resources of the earth. Many dams in different rivers around the world
are developed to harness water resources optimally. In the course of rapid urbanization
and modernization, water demand in the city and town are soaring. In order to fulfill the
demand and supply gap, water experts developed the idea of Integrated Water Resources
Management (IWRM) in river basins. Based on the principles of IWRM, river basins
development have been taking place in various countries of Asia too. This paper has
attempted to present one of the each successful river basins development experience from
Laos and Indonesia. Similarly it highlights the status of river basin development in Nepal.
Despite accepting the fact that IWRM is the best mantra for water management, debate also
exists about its perfection in Sri Lanka. Also in Southern India owing to polity, interstate
water disputes are continuously undermining the principle of IWRM. Taking into account
of these lessons, principles of IWRM can be improved so that water conflict can be avoided
within a river basin.

Key Words: IWRM, River basin, water resources

BACKGROUND

An early example of an integrated approach took place in the 1930s in the United States
of America (USA), with the development of comprehensive watershed plans for natural
resource usage e.g. Tennessee Valley Authority (UNESCO, 2009). However in the global
level, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) emerged around the 1980s in
response to increasing pressures on water resources from competition amongst various
users for a limited resource, the recognition of ecosystem requirements, pollution and the
risk of declining water availability due to climate change. A central goal of IWRM at the
river basin level is to achieve water security for all purposes, as well as manage risks
while responding to, and mitigating, disasters. The path towards water security requires
resolving tradeoffs to maintain a proper balance between meeting various sectors’ needs,
and establishing adaptable governance mechanisms to cope with evolving environmental,
economical and social circumstances (ibid).

1 SDE, DoI

— 87 —
Definition

Integrated Water
Resources Management
(IWRM) is explained
by the Global Water
Partnership (GWP)
as "a process which
promotes the coordinated
development and the
management of water,
land and related resources,
in order to maximize
the resultant economic
and social welfare in Figure 1: IWRM Spiral
an equitable manner
without compromising
the sustainability of vital ecosystems." IWRM strives for effective and reliable delivery
of water services by coordinating and balancing the various water-using sectors – this is
an important part of sustainable water management. As water is mainly managed locally,
the river basin approach is recognized as a comprehensive process for managing water
resources in a more sustainable manner.

IWRM is a step-by-step process and takes time. By responding to changing social, economic
and environmental needs or impacts, one can gradually achieve better and sustainable water
resources management as if moving up a spiral as shown in Figure 1, through such means
as progressively developing water resources in the river basin, building a more integrated
institutional framework, or improving environmental sustainability (UNESCO, 2009).

However, well-developed, well tested, scientifically robust, socially acceptable and

economically viable approaches to implement IWRM at the river basin level are still not
widely available

STATUS OF IWRM IMPLEMENTATION

Experience in various countries has shown that IWRM is an essential prerequisite for
effectively coordinating water development strategies across diverse sectors, political
jurisdictions and geographical regions within a river basin. However, progress towards
implementing IWRM in developed and developing countries have varied widely. According
to UN-Water Status Report, 2008, lack of progress is characteristically associated with
the need to improve public awareness amongst the hierarchy of political jurisdictions and
overlapping management institutions. In developing countries, progress can be hindered
by additional obstacles related to the region, such as technical capacity, political will and
understanding of IWRM concepts and implementation. The Status Report also revealed the

— 88 —
existence of diverse interpretations among countries of IWRM planning and management
processes and their frameworks. These differences may even exist within one country or
between different stretches or sub-basins of the same river.

Nam Ngum Basin, LAOS

The Nam Ngum River Basin (NNRB)

is one of the most significant and
important river basins in Laos. The
area of the basin is 16,841 Sq. Km and
the length of river is 354 Km. The river
is second largest by annual discharge
having 21 billion m3 which is 14.4%
of the flow of Mekong river. Laos
Government has been carrying out the
NNRB development sector with the
assistance of the Asian Development
Bank (ADB) and Agence Francaise
de D'eveloppment since 2009 (ADB,
2009).

National Water Resources Profile

report 2008 of Laos mention that
in the past the Water Resources
Coordination Committee (WRCC) and
the Lao National Mekong Committee
(LNMC) is responsible for leading the
development of river basin planning Figure 2: River Basins of Laos
process and river basin plan. The
WRCC mandate was directed toward
national water resource management while the LNMC dealt more with international
aspects, although this was not a clear separation. Both agencies were small and had
inadequate legal powers and poor capacity to carry out coordination of other ministries. In
order to improve and empower IWRM concept the Government has established a Water
Resource and Environment Administration (WREA) under the Prime Minister's office.
The WREA includes the Department of Environment and Environment Research Institute,
the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology and WRMC an LNMC secretariats.
The WREA should be fully established and strengthened to carry out its important role
in leading IWRM activities. Provincial WREA department should be set up to carry out
water resources, environment and hydrometeorology management at the provincial level.
Provincial water resources committee may be needed to strengthen the coordination of
water resources and environment management among provincial department. River basin
committee should be established for NNRB and other priority river basin.

— 89 —
The strategic framework set out for NNRB plan is as follows (ADB, 2009);

Figure 3: Strategic Framework

Vision

The vision is for an economically prosperous, socially developed and environmentally

sustainable NNRB.

Goal

The Nam Ngum river basin plan is to facilitate the sustainable use of the water and related
resources of the NNRB for the welfare and economic benefit of the National and basin’s
people while protecting, and where possible, improving the environmental condition of the
basin and downstream communities.

Various KRAs are given below in Table 1.

— 90 —
Table 1: KRAs of NNRB

Key Result Area Objective Activities

KRA-1: Strengthen organizational 1. Strengthen Nam Ngum River Basin
Building the arrangements in the Nam Ngum Organizational Arrangement
capacity to basin to enable integrated planning
manage the and management of the basin's 2. Knowledge Management Research
Nam Ngum RB water related resources and to work
with the community and private 3. Stakeholder Engagement an
sector. Awareness Raising

1. Strengthen the Management of the

Strengthen the management of Basin's surface water resources
the water resources in the Nam
KRA-2:
Ngum River Basin so that the water 2. Plan for sustainable management of
Sustainable
resource can be used sustainable the basin's groundwater resources
Water Use
and meet social, economic and
environmental needs 3. Strengthening management of water
quality
Strengthen the coordinated 1. Convene the Cooperative group of
management of the hydropower hydropower operators
KRA-3:
sector in the Nam Ngum River
Optimizing 2. Prepare and implement the
Basin so as to improve overall
hydropower hydropower cooperative
out comes and impacts on other
outcomes
sectors, the environment and social
conditions 3. Sustainability reporting to NNRBO

1. Feasibility studies for increased

KRA-4: Strengthen arrangements and irrigation on the Vientiane plains
Developing practices for stainable irrigation
2. Prepare environmental best practice
the sustainable in the river basin and undertake
guidelines for sustainable irrigation
irrigation potential further sectoral studies for irrigation
of the basin expansion 3. Assess the impacts of hydropower
water releases on irrigation
The key result area strategy involves 1. Convene an interdepartmental task
developing sub-basin management force to coordinate and oversight
plans in priority river sub- basins of management of sub-basins in the
the NNRB in order to improve living NNRB
KRA-5: River conditions and livelihoods while
Sub-basin sharing the water resource between 2. Prepare sub-basin management plans
management users, protecting and where possible in priority basins
improving local and downstream
water quality, and improving aquatic 3. Implement sub-basin plans in the
and water related ecosystems eco NNRB
systems

KRA-6: 1. Appraisal of flood management for

Reducing Review, and as necessary, strengthen the Vientiane plains of the NNRB
risks and the approaches for managing major 2. Appraisal of dam safety in the NNRB
imports from water related disasters in the NN
water induced basin 3. Appraisal of mining water pollution
disaster risks and management

— 91 —
Hydropower development in NNRB

Particularly in hydropower sector Nam Ngum river has got series of dam as given in Fig.
4 and Table 2 below.

Figure 5: Nam Ngum River Basin

Table 2: Hydropower projects

Dam name Status Storage (MCM) Wall height MW Operation dates

Nam Ngum 1 Existing 7000 75 155 1974-80
Nam Ngum 2 Under Construction 6774 181 615 2010
Nam Ngum 3 Planned 1320 210 460 2013
Nam Ngum 5 Under Construction 318 97 100 2015
Nam Bak 2B Planned 185 85 112 2011
NAM Lik 2 Construction 1095 101.4 100 2011

Loas is a landlocked, mountainous Country, widely covered largely unspoilt tropical forest and is one
of East Asia’s poorest countries. Less than 5 % of the land is suitable for subsistence agriculture, which
neveretheless provides around 80 % of employment. This Country has very favorable condiƟons for
hydropower development. Rainfall is considered high. It has 26,000 MW of theoreƟcal potenƟal. In 1970,
it rarely generated hydropower. Currently it generates 2000 MW hydro-electricity and four other projects
totaling 1200 MW are under construcƟon. The Laos Government has strategy to use hydropower to
eradicate poverty. It has conƟnuously made numbers of agreements with the neighboring country Thailand,
Vietnam and Cambodia for increase power export. The companies developing and exporƟng hydropower
also has a system to include imporƟng company as equity share holder of the company. It will supply
7000 MW and 5000 MW to Thailand and Vietnam respecƟvely by 2020. It has set a target to increase
domesƟc electrificaƟon from present 60 % to 90 % by 2020. The parƟcipaƟon of private sector is sought
and promoted through Build-Own-Operate-Transfer approach. The exports of power sector amounts to 30
% of all Laos export levels.

— 92 —
Bengawan Solo river Basin, Indonesia

Figure 6: Bengawan Solo river basin encompasses central and east Java province

The Bengawan Solo River has been important to the welfare of the people, since
ancient times. The river basin that is located in central and eastern part of Java, needs a
comprehensive development and management plan to provide the valuable resource of
water – increasingly necessary – for support to the present economic and social growth at
Java, the most populous island in Indonesia.

The Bengawan Solo River system, 600 km long has a total catchment area of 20,125 km².
The Bengawan Solo River Basin has a precipitation potential of 2100 mm/year, of which
close to 1040 mm or equivalent to 16.7 km³ surfaces as overland flow. The surface water
in the river discharge fluctuates during the year. Groundwater potential is estimated to be
2.1 km³.

— 93 —
Development of River Basin

Figure 7: Solo River Basin (source: Bengawan River Solo Basin)

Development of Bengawan Solo River Basin has been undertaken by an agency responsible
for developing the entire basin, namely the Bengawan Solo River Basin Development
Project (in Indonesian: Proyek Bengawan Solo, abbreviated as PBS) in 1969. The objective
of the Project is an overall basin development comprising river improvements for flood
control and drainage, watershed management and water resources development.

Project activities in the river basin are directed towards improving public welfare and
accelerating economic development both nationally and regionally. Through a number of
changes in the 1990s, Bengawan Solo River Basin Development Project was converted
into PIPWSBS (Proyek Induk Pengembangan Wilayah Sungai Bengawan Solo) and made
fully responsible for the implementation and operation of all water resources development
projects within the Bengawan Solo river basin.

Recently, in 2007 the PIPWSBS was transformed into the River Basin Development
Agency, in Indonesian, Balai Besar Wilayah Sungai (abbreviated as BBWS) Bengawan
Solo through a decree from Ministry of Public Works. Most of the former responsibilities
remain within this agency but additional tasks, such as conducting hydrological monitoring
and surface water quality monitoring were added.

An overall development master plan for the Bengawan Solo River Basin was formulated
under technical assistance from the Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency, Japan
(OTCA) in 1974. The 1974 OTCA’s master plan emphasizes water resources development
for irrigation, flood control, and hydroelectric power generation. In line with this overall
plan, various projects have been realized by PBS, as shown in Table: 3.

— 94 —
Table 3: Various projects

Foreign
No. Name of Project Stage Period
Agency
F/S 1974/75 JICA
1 Wonogiri Multipurpose Dam D/D 1976/78 OECF
C 1979/82 OECF
F/S 1975/76 JICA
Wonogiri Irrigation (Including Irrigation
2 D/D 1977/79 OECF
extensions)
C 1980/90 OECF
F/S 1974/75 JICA
3 Upper Solo river improvement D/D 1983/85 OECF
C 1987/94 OECF
F/S 1980 JICA
4 Madiun River Urgent Flood Control D/D 1983/85 OECF
C 1987/91 OECF
LF/S 1983/86 CIDA
5 Lower Solo River Improvement D/D 1991/93 OECF
C 1994/2001 JIBC

The river infrastructure has contributed much to the water system in the basin, for electricity,
irrigation; municipal and industrial bulk water supply. As the total investment for water
resources infrastructures in Bengawan Solo River Basin is recently about Indonesian
Rupiah(Rp) 1.3 trillion, at year 2000 prices (excluding land compensation), Bengawan
Solo River Basin Development Project currently encounters the problem of funding the
cost of operation and maintenance, which is assumed to be 1% to 2% of water resources
infrastructure investment.

Institutional Arrangement

Bengawan Solo Water Council has 64 members out of that 50% from government
organization and 50% from public users. The structural organization of the council is as
follows;

Figure 8: Organizational Structure of Bengawan Solo Water Council (Source: Bengawan

River Solo Basin)
— 95 —
Principal Duties Bengawan Solo Water Council in order to help Ministry of public works
in concern;

1. Arrange to Road Mapping on level River Basin;

2. Arrange to action Program and activity of Water Resources Management;

3. Arrange to Plan of Allocation of water on level River Basin;

4. Manage of System Information Data (Hydrology, Hydrometeorology, etc ) on level

River Basin;

5. Arrange to Allocation of Water in concern to Water Resources Management.

It also carries out

1. Consultation with other sectors in order to coordinate plans, programs and other
activity with purpose to reach comprehension between sectors and inter region in
Water Resources Management;

2. Coordination with other sectors for arranged in a Road Map on level River Basin;

3. Coordination with other sectors for arrangement of program and action on level
River Basin;

4. Coordination with other sectors and stakeholders that concern in conflict of interest,
etc for integration and harmonization in Water Res. Management;

5. To give consideration for Ministry of Public Works about Water Resources

Management and other issues on level River Basin;

Water Council activities

1. Full Session Meeting (4 times/year);

2. Commisions Meeting;

3. Team work Meeting ; part of members, expert, consultans, etc;

4. Leaders Meeting ; Chairman of TKPSDA, and Chirman of Commisions;

5. Visiting problem in river basin location ; water alocation, mining in river basin,
irigation, etc.

— 96 —
IWRM AND NEPAL

Figure 9 : Major River Basins of Nepal

The concept of IWRM was first officially documented in the National Water Plan (NWP) of
Nepal in 2005. It says "Optimum utilization of water for the benefit of all stakeholders in the
particular river basin couldn’t be achieved in terms of efficiency, equity and environmental
considerations." It has developed the river basin management tools in which it has identified
the following key activities to be carried out for mainstreaming of IWRM.

• Introducing the IWRM and river basin management principles in water

resources policy(ies) and legislation;

• Developing programs to raise awareness of the advantages of IWRM among

all stakeholders, general public, legislators, political activists, civil societies
and professional societies;

• WEC collecting, collating and segregating all relevant data and information
on a river basin basis;

• Encourage all data generators and providers to publish data on river basin
basis; and

• NPC and WEC requiring statements from sector program developers to

produce 'river basin water balance' prior to getting administrative approval
for all projects and programs.
— 97 —
Literally no conspicuous development has been realized in river basin development of
Nepal although two major donors are engaged in this regard. The World Bank has been
supporting to develop Babai basin, West Rapti basin and Gandak basin under component
'C' of Irrigation Water Resource Management Project (IWRMP) which is looking after by
Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS)2. Likewise ADB has been carrying out
Bagmati River Basin Improvement Plan. Apart from these, a Koshi River Basin Project
activity is being conducted by collaborative effort of WECS and WWF.

FORMATION OF RIVER BASIN COMMITTEE

Babai and West Rapti Basin Committees3

Two River Basin committees namely Babai River Basin Committee and West Rapti River
Basin committee have been formed. The process of formation in brief is as follows:

• Three sub-basin committees that is Jhimruk, Madi and Rapti (downstream of

Jhimruk and Madi confluence) are formed in West Rapti. Similarly Sarada,
Upper Babai and Lower Babai (downstream of sarada and upper babai
confluence) sub basin committees are formed in Babai basin. Each sub-
basin committee consists of nine members representing from the existing
water users committees of various sub-sectors such as irrigation, water
supply, forest, micro-hydro etc.

• Twenty seven members from the three sub-basin committees have selected
eleven members among themselves for basin committee. Thus, each basin
committee for Babai and Rapti has eleven members.

• The role of the basin/sub-basin committee is to prepare integrated water

resources plan, suggest implementation arrangement and monitor the
implementation.

• The existing water user committees are responsible for implementation of

the activities.

• There is no legal mechanism as such to guide the basin committee.

Therefore, at present, the basin committee will work closely with District
Water Resources Committee chaired by Chief District Officer, and support
in planning and designing the implementation mechanism.

Planned Activities for Fiscal Year 2070/071: (Considering continuation of IWRMP)

Support to Babai and West Rapti basin committees for preparing integrated river basin
plans;
2 Source : WECS
3 Source: WECS
— 98 —
 Formation of sub-basin/basin committee for Gandaki basin and prepare integrated river
basin plan;

Bagmati Basin

Bagmati River Basin improvement Project is the project supported by ADB. The PPTA (TA
8050-NEP) has been hired by ADB and the feasibility study of Bagmati basin is completed.
The PPTA has finalized the project design in the following three components;

1. Towards Integrated and Participatory River Basin Management;

2. Upper Bagmati River Improvement;

3. Integrated River Training and Irrigation for Marin Khola.

The Bagmati River holds a special place in the national identity of Nepal as it is related to
the mythological birth of civilization in the Kathmandu Valley. It is also considered as a
holy river and counts many cremation ghats and temples of great cultural value along its
banks that attract scores of Hindu devotees from all over the world who traditionally purify
themselves in the holy Bagmati waters. Apart from its cultural and religious significance,
the Bagmati River Basin also has great economic importance as it plays a crucial role
in meeting the water supply requirements of the country’s capital city and downstream
communities, as well as in sustaining irrigated agriculture in the Kathmandu Valley and
throughout the basin4.

Impact and Outcome

• The expected impact of the Project is to improve sustainable economic

development and poverty reduction in Bagmati River Basin.

• The expected outcome of the Project will focus on improving water security
in the Bagmati River Basin as a whole.

At present one can hope early implementation of this project to improve the quality of life
in Kathmandu valley.

UPDATING OF IRRIGATION MASTER PLAN AND RIVER BASIN PLAN;

Recently kicked off study project "Water Resources Project Preparatory Facility (WRPPF)"
has envisaged of updating irrigation master plan and river basin plan in its package four.
By doing water budgeting and allocating water for different use will facilitate the planner
to develop different water related projects in future5.

4 Source: Bagmati River Basin Improvement Project, DoI unit

5 Source: DoI
— 99 —
DEBATE ON IWRM

There exists another school of thoughts that IWRM tends to be driven not by indigenous
need but rather by foreign intervention and is enforced “through international organizations,
loan conditionality, expert consultations, and economic as well as political pressure”
(Laube, 2007: 421), often at the expense of alternative solutions and paths.
Giordano and Shah agree with above statements and illustrate the example of Sri Lanka;
In 1993, the Government began a process of implementing water policy reform under a
technical assistance activity of the ADB in association with the ISPAN/USAID. Some 115
stakeholder consultation meetings were held involving government agencies at the national
and provincial levels, policymakers, water managers, the private sector, professional
bodies, NGOs and all major water users. Working groups were set up involving NGOs
to discuss and identify the major problems, suggest policy prescriptions and propose
appropriate institutional arrangements to implement the policy. The result was a package
of reforms mimicking the IWRM ideal described above. A water policy and water law were
established, existing water organizations were to be replaced by river basin organizations;
water use rights were established through withdrawal permits, permits were made
transferable to encourage water trade towards high valued uses and all water was priced.
Despite following an apparently open process, the reform program was heavily criticized
and thought the program was implemented to satisfy donor interest rather than cater to
national needs.
In the wake of intense agitation by the public and the media against the proposed national
water policy, the government first distanced itself and then withdrew the proposals. The
result was not simply that the process failed, but also that the opportunity for any reform
was greatly reduced. Open discussions of even some of the principles of IWRM, such as
cost recovery, have become politically impossible. Outside organizations trying to help
with the water sector are frequently accused of trying to buy up or privatize Sri Lanka’s
water. Almost 20 years after the reform process started, there has been little change and
when a drought hits the country, as is the case now, there is no way to coordinate a response.
The process of establishing IWRM set back progress in tackling Sri Lanka’s real water
challenges (Giordano and Shah, 2012).

However it was strongly criticized by Dr. Danka and Stevan in Global Water Partnership's
blog. They say that the failure cited was not really a failure of IWRM but it was a failure
of polity; or of some stakeholders hijacking the process. They further defended saying that
it require a deeper analysis than simply saying IWRM failed and blamed poor governance,
harmful subsidies, and lack of participation for the causes.

Furthermore they compared IWRM with democracy by giving the examples of many
countries that have problems applying democratic principles (for many of the same reasons
they have problems applying IWRM). But the conclusion isn’t that ‘democracy doesn’t
work’. It is that certain conditions and processes have to be in place before democratic
principles can succeed (though never perfectly).

— 100 —
FAILURE OF IWRM DUE TO POLITY

While appealing in principle, practical implementation of IWRM has often been problematic.
For example a case study of the Krishna basin in South India highlights that interstate water
conflicts remain largely unresolved in India despite such long-held calls for IWRM and the
existence of basin water allocation mechanisms. Framing the river basin as a social and
political space sheds light on the root causes of continued interstate water disputes in India
and allows opportunities for sustainable water management to be identified (Venot et al,
2010).

Another example of interstate water dispute is the Kaveri Basin. This too has been the
source of a serious conflict between the Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The
802 kilometres Kaveri river has 32,000 km2 basin area in Karnataka and 44,000 km2 basin
area in Tamil Nadu. The state of Karnataka contends that it does not receive its due share
of water from the river as does Tamil Nadu. Karnataka claims that these agreements were
skewed heavily in favour of the Madras Presidency, and has demanded a renegotiated
settlement based on "equitable sharing of the waters". Tamil Nadu, on the other hand,
pleads that it has already developed almost 1.2 million ha of land and as a result has come
to depend very heavily on the existing pattern of usage. Any change in this pattern, it
says, will adversely affect the livelihood of millions of farmers in the state. After decades
of negotiations between the parties, bore no fruit. So on 20 February 2013, based on the
directions of the Supreme Court, the Indian Government has notified the final award of the
Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) on sharing the waters of the Cauvery system
among the basin States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala and Union territory of
Pondicherry (Wikipedia, 2013).

The aforementioned cases of India have illustrated that without resolving inter-state polity,
principles of IWRM remains in shadow.

CONCLUSION

The integrated approach involving RBO like setup has been successfully applied in many
river basins worldwide. Tennesse Valley Authority and Murray Darling Basins are worth
emulating examples of IWRM approach with appropriate Institutional Mechanism. In Asia,
Mekong Basin and Bengawan Solo river basin of Indonesia are good examples following
the principles of IWRM.

The pressing need of water in various sectors is a challenge to cope with for developing
countries. As, most of the easy storage sites have already been identified and executed,
the future lies in Integrated Water Resources Management for sustainable development of
water resources along with preservation of ecosystems.

Learning the lessons from the successful examples of RBOs, South Asian countries
could benefit more and suffer less. In Nepal, benefits from potential hydropower

— 101 —
development and agricultural modernization remain untapped, while flood and
drought management systems are inadequate to protect lives and livelihoods. Better
management of the basin – to sustain the river ecosystem, capture its potential
benefits, and mitigate its mounting costs – requires enhanced regional knowledge
and cooperation.

Even in the transboundary river basin, the development trend is through incremental,
project-by-project activities within each of the riparian countries. There has been
surprisingly little systematic regional research on the basin’s development options and
challenges using modern analytical tools that go beyond sector, country, or state analysis
to examine the systemwide strategic questions that the basin faces. In addition, long-held
perceptions of the current condition and the future development path of the any river
basins vary dramatically within and among different stakeholder groups, institutions, and
countries.

Reference

Asian Development Bank, Agence Francaise de Development. "Nam Ngum River Basin
Integrated Water Resources Management Plan." 2009.

Asian Development Bank, Agence Francaise de Development. "National Water Resource

Profile." 2008.

Dr. Danka and Stevan. "Ceasefire on IWRM." GWP, 2013.

JEAN-PHILIPPE VENOT et al. "Beyond water, beyond boundaries: spaces of water

management in the Krishna river." The Geographical Journal, 210.

Laube Wolfram. "The promise and perils of water reform: Perspective from Northen
Ghana." Africa Spectrum 01/2007; 42(3):419-437., 2007: 421.

Shah, Mark Giordano and Tushaar. "Non-Integrated Water Resources Management."

Presentation for the 6th Botin Foundaction Water Workshop, 2012.

Tjoek Walujo Subijanto, Fahmi Hidayat, Raymond Valiant. Brantas and Solo River Basin
in Indonesia. Perum Jasa Tirtha 1, 2007.

UNESCO, International hydrological program of UNESCO, World Water, NARBO.

"IWRM Guidelines at River Basin Level." 2009.

Water Energy and Commission Secretariat (WECS). "National Water Plan." 2005.

WIKIPEDIA. 2013. (accessed 2013).

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 Governance through Internal Auditing in
Irrigation and Agriculture
Janak Raj Gautam1

Abstract

Sustainable operation of contemporary activities in irrigation and agriculture is essential

for employment and growth. Efficient management of irrigation is able to coordinate
and provide regular service of its output to agriculture sector for the national
requirement of farming products and cultivators, making the constructional structure
and maintenance of irrigation system well. Therefore, prevailing periodic plan has
envisioned that the administrative, management and development mechanism should
be reliable, transparent, result-oriented, accountable and legitimate in the operation
of development affairs.

The arrangements of internal audit is to review the application of capital expenditure

budget, foreign assistance, cash, stores and other governmental property, whether
they are in the grip of any mismanage, malpractice, damage and abuse . The rules
for collection, deposits and custody of revenue, other income and retention money are
complied with and recorded in the books of accounts with correctness and adequacy.

The duties and responsibilities of internal auditors are to identify, verify, evaluate,
analyze, inspect and observe the budget execution, financial statements, financial
transactions, operational activities, performance of programs, and non-financial
activities of an entity . Their functions may extend to review the same considering
efficiently, effectively and economically. Eventually, they have to prepare the report to
the management for mid-course correction and recommendations for improvements
thereto if the financial transactions are out of financial discipline and not in tune
with governance principles.

INTRODUCTION

Good governance can be in motion when government of Nepal can make public service
delivery effective through transparency, participation, accountability, and legitimacy
particularly in development affairs. In this context, the efforts have been continued to
translate the basic principles and provisions of Good Governance (Management and

1 e-mail [email protected] ; [email protected]

Director of Studies, Nepal Administrative Staff College
— 103 —
Operation) Act, 2007, Civil Service Act, 1993, Local Self-Governance Act, 1998, Public
Procurement Act, 2007, Fiscal Procedures Act, 1998 and rules, regulations of the same.

Historically, through 1940 to 1950 internal auditing was heavily involved in the
analysis of financial management solely for meeting point of financial auditing.
Modern internal auditing has begun to be an integral part of a control system of
any entity since 1941. It is a saying that “Nobody can deny the fact that effective
internal auditing protects an organization from fraud and financial irregularities".

In this way, to-day internal auditing accepts much broader range of responsibility
maintaining proximate relationship with management. Basically, the internal
auditor can also assist the line management by ensuring that adequate financial
and management controls have been implemented and are operating effectively by
identifying weaknesses in the system. Although, management appoints internal
auditor, but internal auditors are not assistant of the management but are as a part
of top management level. Therefore, internal auditing is critical examination of
books of accounts with a view to establish their accuracy and correctness through
the verification and cross-checking of the books of accounts by a person engaged
by management for the job. However, the duties of internal auditors are not only
limited to the verification of arithmetical accuracy, but ascertaining the validity
and reliability of accounting information, financial data, records, statements and
performance results and also provide an assessment of a system of internal
control of a person, organization, system, process, project or product.

OBJECTIVES

'Transparency and accountability are not government’s gracious concessions; instead,

they are the legal, ethical and moral obligation that no one can overlook’ according to
Arturo Gonzdleg Aragon, former chairman of International Organization of Supreme Audit
Institutions (INTOSAI) Governing Board. In tuning with the same line Mr Claes Norgen,
Auditor General of Sweden has expressed that 'Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) help
their governments improve performance, enhance transparency, ensure accountability,
fight corruptions, promote public trust and foster efficient and effective receipt and use of
public resources for their citizens. In this respect, the vision of government auditing as
used by the Office of the Auditor General of Nepal is, 'an independent, efficient and
effective audit institution to promote good governance'. The following diagram gives an
idea about the relationship among financial transactions, management records, financial
statement and internal auditor's report .

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The purpose of an internal audit is to help to management for making mid–
course correction in any financial transactions, to help to final auditors providing
the report, to give opportunity to the incumbents prevent their individual images if
they have committed any mistakes and misutilized in the irrigation agricultural
and entities. Therefore, internal audit draws attention to go ahead mostly in
following matters:-
• Evaluate the system- To increase agricultural production and productivity
through efficient, sustainable, effective and reliable distribution system for
providing irrigation facility to the agricultural land throughout the year.
• Eliminate poverty — to assist in alleviating poverty with the creation of
employment through preservation of human settlements, irrigation system
and agricultural land.
• Resources mobilization —to mobilize foreign-aid in irrigation and
agriculture sectors to fulfill the deficit on the internal financial resources to
obtain national development goals.
• Delegate authority — To delegate the administrative, financial, technical
and procurement authority to the local level entities for such a variety of
functions to implement the process be more effective.
• Monitoring -To make the monitoring and evaluation process of management,
financial and development functions workable and credible.
SCOPE

Management can determine the scope of internal audit regarding the increasing
scale of internal audit for achieving maximum organizational effectiveness. It
considerably comprises the nature, time, extent, depth of coverage and procedures
from financial to non-financial activities. Internal auditors require a good eye for
— 105 —
details, a closer scrutiny and a concern for accuracy on financial information,
evidences, books of accounts and data. They are expected to deal mostly with
individual, financial figures, systems and structures keeping them within the scope.

METHODS

The choice of route and techniques is a matter of professional judgment. The audit
evidences may be gathered from within (internal) or from outside (external) the
organization. Internal auditing can help the governance of the irrigation entities
which are providing irrigation facility in 162,075 ha agriculture land and
preservation of physical structure and human settlements after the construction of
300 km dam through ground water irrigation projects within 2012-13. Following
are the nature of evidences to examine and verify for moving forward that
internal auditors conduct the their tasks to achieve the above the objectives:-

a) Normally evidences, to be influential, must be sufficient appropriate that is

obtained to a reasonable basis:-

Timely and Substantial Reliable and documented

Valid and relevant Useful and objective

Sufficiency and appropriate Sensible and cost effective

a) Route to move forward

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DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
According to the Institute of Internal Auditors, government auditing is a cornerstone of
good public sector governance. The objective of internal auditing is to assist members of
the organization in the effective discharge of their responsibilities.” A major responsibility
of an internal auditor is to ascertain the extent of entity compliance with established
management policies, strategy, plan and procedure. Its focus is on rule, norms, internal
control system, directions, and internal regulations are in functions as designed. Therefore,
an internal auditor in an irrigation and agriculture sector has to examine the propriety of
the following financial transactions of each entity with due regard to:-

• Objectives− Have clear objectives and policies

• Accountability− Conduct the projects in tune with cost recovery system

by making the irrigation facilities sustainable and reliable to the agriculture
sector.

• Appropriation− Does not exceed the ceilings of expenditure heads and

subheads that has to be incurred for their respective purposes. Strengthen
the multi-year allocation system of capital expenditures budget.

• Compliance −Adequately support the financial transactions and they are in

compliance with existing laws. The accounts have been maintained in the
prescribed form in a correct, satisfactory, acceptable and reliable manner.
The accounts of expenditure of irrigation and agricultural services and
their balance of cash and other assets are adequate.

• Revenue −Supervise the collection, deposit and custody of revenue, other

incomes and retention money are in adherence with rules and regulation.
The arrangements and rules relating to their financial transactions are being
observed.

• Assets − Up to-date keep correct the inventory of irrigation and

agricultural entities and the assets are properly utilized, maintained and
secured against loss or damage;

• Operation − Operate satisfactorily the organization because of sound

management system and job allocation of projects being reasonable and
proper.

• Participation − Make the programs implemented through people's

participation more result-oriented, transparent and accountable by making
it cost effective within approved limits.

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 • Duplication − Find out any duplication of work, or that any function is
being performed unnecessarily or any necessary task has been omitted; the
progress of work is on schedule and the quality and quantity of the work
produced is satisfactory.

• Internal control - Review the internal control playing a significant

role in the accountability process. The study and evaluation of internal
control has become a standard audit procedure for satisfactory discharge
of auditing responsibilities. It is the duty of internal auditors to examine
whether a system of internal control has been a safeguard against the losses,
misappropriation, fraud and intentional errors.

PERFORMANCE AUDIT

Internal audit function is more than just transaction based and cost driven.
Therefore, performance audit is the next step of internal auditing. Performance
audit, according to International Standards of Supreme Audit Institution (ISSAI)
often ask two questions,

• Are the right things being done?

• Are things being done in the right way?

Economy Spending less for Input

Efficiency Spending well process

Effectiveness Spending wisely for outcomes

1.Criteria What the auditee should have done

2.Condition what the auditee did or did not do ,it is the situation actually existing in
the audited entity
3.Causes Why the auditee did not meet the criteria, likely reason for audit result.
4.Consequences What results from the auditee not meeting the criteria, it is the impacts.

RESULT AS DISCREPANCIES

According to Kirsten Astrup, INTOSAI Director of Strategic Planning, "I believe

that working in an internal audit environment is a valuable experience for any
external auditor".

Audit objections are the auditors’ findings that are unmatching between the criteria
and condition that really exists in the implementation. However, auditors need not

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write any queries on a second guess. In order to make management of irrigation
and agriculture service effective, legal provisions will be undertaken for Irrigation
Development Fund on the basis of feasibility. Working procedures will be developed
considering the aid agreement in order to implement Paris Declaration, 2005, Accra
Agenda for Action 2008 and Bushan Conference, 2011.Normally the examples
of authority, responsibility, accountability, functions, duties and assignments of
office-bearers which should be exposed in the auditors' reports. However, internal
audit reports are not made public. Office of the Auditor General studies the internal
audit report and, if found any significant ones, may incorporate in the annual
report. In this connection, it will be useful to know the status of unsettled final audit
queries in a concise form. If there is sound internal audit and management has
made correction, rectification, action taken and improvement to the internal audit
report accordingly for maintaining financial discipline, then the following figures
irregularities wouldn't have been in the Auditor General's Report, 2013 (50th),

Rs. ( in lakh)

Statements Total of all Irrigation Agriculture

ministries
Total amount of Audit discrepancies yet be cleared 2,04,25,74 2,25,52 1,66,78
up to this year
Advance amount to be settled from individuals 72,87,13 1,62,14 13,36
and institutions
Total audited amount of the fiscal year 2011-12 i.e. 7,42,59,43 10,16,29 11,25,08
Annual Report-2050
Irregularities amount to be covered from individuals 3,89,97 1,61 5,45
and institutions in 2011-12
Total irregularities of the fiscal year 2011-12 35,07,51 1,18,56 31,06
Advance amount to be settled from individuals 14,70 99,52 3,62
and institutions of the fiscal year 2011-12

PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES

Following are the major problems prevailing in internal audit while taking steps towards
good governance.

• Lack of effective mechanism to discourage the financial irregularities

• Lack of knowledge and skill for professional development to internal

auditors.

• Lack of effective monitoring of internal auditors' report issued.

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 • Internal audit function has been misunderstood, misused or simply ignored.

• Internal audit has not been completed and not reported within stipulated
time.

• Internal audit directive should be followed in an auditing situation

CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Management of an entity receives an assurance from internal sources that the

processes have minimized the probability of the occurrence of fraud, error,
inefficient and uneconomic practices. Internal auditors should not confine to what
has been done 'but also examine what not has been done’ to meet the policy
and objectives. Internal auditors recommend for remedial steps and actions, where
necessary. Timely reform and capacity enhancement of the Financial Comptroller
General Office will be made by conducting their organization and management
study in order to complete public expenditure management tasks for maintaining
financial discipline. Then the governance through internal audit can be achieved in
agriculture and irrigation sector with sustainability.

a) Correction—Public expenditure management requires effective monitoring

and evaluation system that can be fruitful with the reference of internal audit
report making correction timely.

b) Professional—internal audit work is performed by persons having adequate

training, proficient, experienced, and professionally qualified persons.

c) Co-ordination—Co-ordination between institutional capacity developments

will be enhanced to increase capacity, transparency and accountability in
aid mobilization committed bilateral and multilateral assistance to meet the
increasing expenditure needs,

d) Action plan- Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Action Plan

will be implemented according to rules and regulation.

e) Spectrum- The area of audit may cover the entire spectrum of control.
Eventually, the external auditors should cover few elements to ascertain
and evaluate whether the internal audit work appears to be in consistent and
reasonable.

— 110 —
REFERENCES

Three Year Plan Approach Paper (2010/11 - 2012/13), National Planning

Commission

ASOSAI journal of government Audit, October, 2011; New Delhi

ibid,

Strategic Plan (2013-15), Office of the Auditor General, Kathmandu

Three Year Plan Approach Paper (2010/11 - 2012/13), National Planning Commission,
Kathmandu.

ASOSAI journal of government Audit, April 2012; New Delhi

Accountability and Audit by Mrs. Jocelyn Thompson, Auditor General of Trinidad and
Tobago International Journal of Auditing – April 2003

Fiscal Procedures Rules, 2007, Ministry of Law; Kathmandu

Spotlight, International Journal of Auditing, 2011, Washington DC

Three Year Plan Approach Paper (2010/11 - 2012/13), National Planning Commission,
Kathmandu.

Bushan Conference, 2011, Bushan, South Korea; Daily News paper,2011

ASOSAI journal of government Audit, April 2012; New Delhi

Annual Audit Report of the Auditor General-2013, Kathmandu

— 111 —
— 112 —
 Rethinking on governance of irrigation service
Laxman Neupane1

ABSTRACT

Water resources is important natural resources, it has played a vital role for socio-economic
development, building capability, enhancing the livelihood opportunities, generating
hydropower, and irrigation etc. Water resources management, utilization and development
are becoming more complexes and challenging tasks that it involves emerging uncertainties
at different levels. Further water management increases and accelerates different water
demand areas and is doubled with increasing population, urbanization, emerging and
economic grow and climate change. Hence, water resources need to sustainably managed
and steer it properly. Water resource is as taken as common property resources whereas
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is gaining universal paradigm of
sustainable and inclusive water resources management and use. However, integrating water
functions is a very complex and daunting task as it involves diverse actors and stakeholders
that they have multiple interests to use it. This nature of application and involvement make
it fertile case for water crisis that it is essentially a crisis of governance (UNDP 2004;
United Nations (UN, 2005, 2006). In water services and its sustainability manifests itself
in the fragmented institutional structures, absence of clarity on roles and responsibilities,
questionable allocation and distribution patterns, wicked financial management, poor
capacity of implementing agencies both private and public levels including NGOs/civil
society organizations; and in the pervasive leakage of resources, weak accountability of
politicians, policy-makers and implementing agencies, unclear or non-existent regulatory
environments, and unpredictability in the investment climate for private sector actors (UN
2006). Many of these problems are rooted in a general lack of knowledge and awareness of
rights and responsibilities of societal institutions. This paper brings governance perspective
and political economy that analysis on application of the IWRM approach and the related
principles of governance for sustainable water resources water regime.

SCHEMATIC

Developed, developing and under developed worlds; in general the globe community
have been experiencing to water crisis. Population growth, land use changes, expanding
and creating new economic opportunities has been heightening various forms of water
scarcities in every part of the human society.

1 Governance, Human Development, and Sustainability Program, CED Nepal. GPO Box 10475, Kathmandu,
Nepal

— 113 —
Water in fact is the essential for survival, it tads entire gamut of human life, ecological,
economic, and social/cultural. Water resources management lies on broad spectrum
social ecological system (SES) (Ostrom 2007 &1997) in the contemporary time that it
must addresses each of all sectors as well as the linkages and trade-offs among ecological
needs and services, human well being. The framework of sustainable water resources
management that integrates to many competing facets of water access, use and distribute so
that water can be managed as a sustainable manner. Unfortunately, modern water resource
management endeavors have not scientifically addressed to the SES framework and
methodological processes that necessarily integrates plural sectors and their cumulative
effects. Recognizing to this urgency, this paper deliberates to the Rethinking on Governance
of Irrigation Service that integrates to social phenomena that shapes to Sustainable Water
Resources Management.

Author of the paper came to realize that governance requires for sustainability of irrigation
service that is an outcome of deploying to the SES framework to monitor, assess, and
adaptively managing to irrigation services as broad aspect of water resources management
without compromise to future generation’s need.

Vedeld (1996) argues that the devolution process of resources management involves
to programs that shift responsibility and authority from the state to non- governmental
bodies—a "rolling back the boundaries of the state”. Devolution processes could go
by a range of models or names that when control over resources is transferred more or
less completely to local user groups, it is often called to as Community-Based Resource
Management (CBRM). In CBRM regime, state/government principally pull down her
role (s) by (either) cuts or redeploys her agents or staffs; in joint management or co
management process, when state/government retains a large role in resource management,
in conjunction with an expanded role for users, it may be referred to as joint management
or co-management. In this model of management, the roles are often not clear-cut, with
most cases involving some form of interaction between the state and user groups. These
form of process or model have specific terms depend to community, sector and country. In
irrigation service, irrigation management transfer generally recognizes to programs that go
farther in divesting government/ state agencies of their roles that Participatory Irrigation
Management programs (PIMP) seek to increase user engagement that is usually as a
supplement to the state/government's role. Like joint forest management is an example
of program that transfer some management responsibilities to user groups, in conjunction
with state agencies. The following paragraph in the paper explains on devolution, de-
concentration, decentralization and privatization etc.

Devolution process is a part of a number of related policy reforms, in which

central government agencies transfer rights and responsibilities to more localized
institutions. Ribot (1999) be fluent on devolution further focuses to the transfer
of rights and responsibilities to user groups at the local level. These forms of
organizations are accountable to their membership and user members usually those

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 who depend on the resource, but do not represent others in the local community,
nor society at large.

In a de-concentration, the decision-making authority is transferred to lower-

level units of a bureaucracy, or government line agency, represents the least
fundamental change, because authority remains with the same type of institution,
and accountability is ultimately still to the central government

Decentralization in which transferring both decision-making authority and

payments responsibility to lower levels of government is made. This model
provides a stable and stronger role to local bodies. This is presumed to have greater
accountability to the local populace, including both users of the resource and others
who live in the area.

Dick & Knox (1999) provides broad perspective on privatization that refers to
transfer from the public sector to private groups or individuals. This can include
non-profit service organizations (grassroots or external NGOs) and for-profit firms
(Uphoff 1998). The private sector can be taken to include user groups.

Behind all these process or models, the broad principle of governance is about decision
making by addressing to concerns and aspirations of multiple social phenomena that should
be devolved to the lowest appropriate level. Within this, transfers of authority to lower
level of government (de-concentration and decentralization) represent vertical subsidiarity,
while transfers to non-governmental institutions (user groups or private firms) represents a
horizontal dimension of subsidiarity (Doring, 1997).

The concern of this paper is with rethinking on governance of irrigation services that
requires for creating new economic opportunities by addressing to SES sustainability. To
this aspect, number of institutional actors, community groups, norms & values as well as
culture are involved in framing and designing irrigation services which falls under resources
system. International agencies, government, local government bodies, civil society, non
state actors and the private sector, as well as user groups keep their eyes on the resources
system that shape their well being. The structure and dynamic interactions between these
forms of organizations or institution is important. In this paper, governance, sustainability,
and capability approach, and conclusion have been discussed. These discussions have been
relied from literatures survey that attempts to elaborate on typology of governance.

GOVERNANCE

Past several decades, traditional governance instruments had failed to address the concerns
of social, economic and environment as well as political system etc. This had yielded much
turmoil around the world. Many forms of governance had emerged to settle chaos that were
impacted severely to both human wellbeing and made irreversible destruction of natural
resources. Such shift in governance has occurred in private, semi private, and public
— 115 —
spectrum at local, county, province, district, regional, national, transnational and global
levels. Changes have taken place in the forms and mechanisms of governance, location
of governance, governing capacity, fashion & style of governance. Such changes have
been the subject of a variety of literatures, and disciplines like political science, sociology,
economics, law, public administration & business administration, natural resources,
environment, history and geography etc. Such wide disciplines give the term ‘governance’
different meaning. Governance in fact is a systems of rule, as the purposive activities of any
collectivity, that sustain mechanisms designed to ensure its safety, prosperity, coherence,
stability, and continuance. These mechanisms, usually the core businesses of government
are increasingly found in international collectivities (Rosenau, 2000). The credit goes to
the World Bank that the first prominent usage of ‘governance’ while its investing fund or
resources for economic development. The World Bank and other international development
organizations have been stressing efficient or good governance (Janning, 1997). Principle
of economic governance argues to so called second generation reforms’ that this approach
triggers of discouraging wasteful public sending; spending primary health, education, social
safety net, promoting private sector, reinforcing banking sector, reforming tax system and
creating transparency, accountability within government and corporate affairs (Rosenbaum
& Shephered, 2000; Wood, 2000; Philip, 1999; Kiely 1998; cited by Kersbergen, K. V. and
Waarden, V. F. 2004).

In the context of economic governance, this approach is refined along with other disciplines
of economic history, institutional economics, economic sociology, comparative political
economy, labor economics that societies have varieties of institutions to govern economic
activities, assist reduce the cost and increase their likelihood of visibility; government
is only one institutions. Contracts, firms & their hierarchies, voluntary association, and
users groups etc. are other form of institutions. So, these types of governance are broader
category of governance other than government.

These forms of governance have greater role for efficient and sustainability in developing
new or strengthening existing irrigation schemes. Without considering to societal concerns,
interests and roles; society in this case would hesitate to take ownership of schemes that
rises to a question of sustainability. Considering to technicality of schemes like designing
and developing, maintenance or operation etc. is not sufficient where as all forms of social,
economical, environmental or political phenomena requires to internalize from early stage
of inception. Nepal carries very unique experience from Chandra Nahar (Canal) up to Sikta
or Rani Jamara irrigation project etc.; glory of our irrigation experiences is distressful that
like Rajkulo, traditional farmers managed schemes etc. were annihilated in the name of
modernity or sustainability. It is a failure of governance to address existing dimensions of
schemes that fail to deliver required level of services. This form of governance equally
consume huge amount of means which governance unable to operate in the long term.
Engaging diverse actors and stakeholders to a large extent form of hybrid governance
institutions that successful governance systems in irrigation sector could be framed that both
bottom-up input and top-down initiatives could be realized. Promoting awareness, build

— 116 —
political commitment and trigger action on critical irrigation issues at all levels, including
the highest decision-making level, to facilitate the efficient conservation, protection,
development, planning, management and use of irrigation water in all its dimension and
environmentally sustainable basis for the benefit of all life on earth are the crucial elements
that fairly demands to internalize.

Bringing to all into a platform to encourage debates, exchanges of experience, ideas etc.;
this facilitates to reach a common strategic vision on irrigation services and management.
Their action will recognize from fulfilling basic human need of access to clean water and
sanitation and calls for effective mechanisms for the management of shared waters, to
support and preserve ecosystems, to encourage the efficient use of water, to address gender
equity issues in water use, and to encourage partnership between the members society
and governments. This is possible for yielding a strategic vision through a participative
governance process for solving twin issue of water crisis, and crisis of governance.
Funding, capacity, policy, administrative, information, accountability and information are
considered major gaps likely mitigate in timely.

CAPABILITY APPROACH (CA)

The capability approach developed by Amartya Sen; further Martha Nussbaum contributed
to expanding it in multiple levels that response to the conventional welfare economics.
The approach is a broad normative framework for evaluating and assessment individual
wellbeing and social arrangements, design policy strategies, and proposals for social
change in society. It is used a wide range of fields; most prominently in developing
thinking, welfare economics, social policy and political economics etc. It aids to evaluate
several aspects of people’s well being- such as in equality, poverty, and wellbeing of an
individual or aggregative wellbeing of a group community or society. This approach is
also used an alternative evaluative tool for social cost benefit analysis or to design and
evaluate policies, ranging from welfare state design in affluent societies; or to development
policies by government and non governmental organization. The CA has also provided the
foundations of the human development paradigm (Fukuda-Parr, 2003). It must note that
the CA is not a theory that can explain poverty, inequality or wellbeing; instead it only
provides a tool to conceptualize and evaluate these phenomena. The CA core concern is on
wellbeing and development thus evaluates policies according to their impact on people’s
capabilities. It seeks whether people are being healthy, educated, and capable, empower
and whether the means or resources necessary for this capability, such as clean water,
access to health facility. It also asks whether people are well nourished, well education,
political participation, sufficient food supplies, and food entitlements are met. All these
plays vital role to foster real friendship, for some of these capabilities, the main input will
be financial resources and economic production, but other it can also be political practices
of effecting guaranteeing protection of freedom, social cultural practice, social structures,
social institutions, public goods, social norms, traditions and habits. The capability
approach covers all spectrum of human wellbeing. The approach basically conceptualizes

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welfare as life quality that measures in capability and functioning instead of economical
term as income and utility. Capabilities are freedom or individual scope of actions or
opportunities to attain valuable doing and beings- the functioning. To operationalize this
approach in irrigation sector, the question would be why farmers want irrigation service,
a valuable functioning are considered drives for implementation irrigation schemes to
irrigate their crops. In the irrigation perspective, the CA facilitates as an instrument to
open up to motivating for constructing, operating, maintain etc. to irrigation schemes
and optimal use of available irrigation water by protecting watershed catchment. While
developing or investing on irrigation scheme, all these phenomena require to analysis that
predicts intended interventions’ level of contribution for human wellbeing. It is, therefore,
this approach is very important in irrigation services, which aim to excel human wellbeing.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT2

Evolution of sustainable development can be tracked down from Hardin (1968) seminal
work on Tragedy of Common, 1972 and 1992 years’ series of international conferences and
initiatives. In 1972, the UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm could
be the first major international gathering to discuss sustainability at the global level. The
conference stressed to establish to the UN Environment Program (UNEP), and the creation
of numerous environmental protection agencies at the national level. The recommendations
from Stockholm Conference were further elaborated in the 1980 by World Conservation
Strategy: collaboration between the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
(IUCN), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and UNEP: which aimed to advance sustainable
development by identifying priority conservation issues and key policy strategies.

In 1983, the UN administrated to the World Commission on Environment and Development

(WCED), chaired by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, and assembled
representatives from both developed and developing countries, the Commission focused
on growing concern over the “accelerating deterioration of the human environment and
natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social
development”. In 1987, the commission brought the landmark report of Our Common
Future or the Brundtland report that provided a stark verdict to the state of the environment.
The report popularized the most commonly used definition of sustainable development:
“Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 45). Further the
Brundtland report on sustainable development steered for the landmark 1992 Rio Summit
that laid the foundations stone for the global governance for sustainable development. On
the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Stockholm Conference, the Earth Summit
adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, a global
plan of action for sustainable development. The developed countries acknowledge the

2 This part of work is drawn from the author own work on Transitioning to A Green Economy:
policy orientation for sustainable development. Published in A Journal of Public Finance and
Economy, Ministry of Finance, Singh Durbar, Kathmandu in 2013. Author
— 118 —
responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view
of the pressures to their communities on the global environment and of the technologies
and financial resources they command.

The Rio Summit successfully established global environment governance by establishing

three important environmental institutions; these are the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the non-
legally binding Statement of Forest Principles. From the recommendation of Agenda 21,
the UN General Assembly officially created the Commission on Sustainable Development
(CSD). The Rio Summit was very successful that it had successfully sensitized on issue
of environmental deterioration from the world to national level that this brought world’s
attention, attracted world leaders’ active engagement and their meaningful attendance on
many facets of environmental issues. Since that time, series of international conferences and
meetings on sustainable development have been held like the 1997 Earth Summit+5 in New
York and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg
etc. These international gatherings were primarily reviews of progress; and reported that a
number of positive results had been achieved, but implementation efforts largely had been
unsuccessful at the national and international level. The UN General Assembly noted in
1997 (paragraphs 4 and 17) that “the overall trends with respect to sustainable development
are worse today than they were in 1992” and “much remains to be done to activate the means
of implementation set out in Agenda 21, in particular in the areas of finance and technology
transfer, technical assistance and capacity-building.” In 2002, United Nations Secretary-
General Kofi Annan confirmed that “progress towards reaching the goals set at Rio has
been slower than anticipated” and “there is undoubtedly a gap in implementation” (United
Nations Economic and Social Council, 2002, p. 4). Regrettably, initiatives following the
seminal Rio Summit have not attracted the attention, commitment, and resources required
for effective implementation of sustainable development in water resources and irrigation
sector. This is a problem with multilateral agreements that commitments at the international
level do not reflect the processes and realities in a country, where multiple stakeholders
including government, businesses, and non- governmental organizations (NGOs) need to
be engaged in the action.

NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In Nepalese context, with motivation from international development pacts and agreements,
and be the party of international conventions, Nepal shows her commitments, obligations;
crafted national policy strategies, rules and regulations etc. in the line of sustainable
development, these pacts and agreements have been directly or indirectly contributing
sustainable development in the country. Level of technology, size of economy and poor
in human development could not afford to internalized or operationalized to these loaded
international agendas.

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Since sixth five-year plan (1982-1987) Nepal had concentration to internalizing its
policies, programs and institutions for the sustainable development. In sixth five-year plan,
Nepal introduced sustainable development in its national planning context that was fully
translated into actions in the Eighth Plan (1992-1997); this plan was committed to achieve
sustainable economic growth, poverty alleviation and reduction of regional imbalances.
During the ninth five-year plan (1997-2002), the plan was concentrated on the need for
development activities to be sustainable and for establishing links between environment
and poverty. Further, the implementation of Agriculture Perspective Plan (1996-2015)
and revised the Forest Sector Master Plan, giving communities a greater role in natural
resources management.

In 2003, Nepal adopted Sustainable Development Agenda for Nepal (SADN); the
SADAN was a policy strategy for promoting environmental management and sustainable
development. Further, it emphasized for effectively integrating the sustainable development
approach in planning with people’s participation, and set direction for long-term targets in
infrastructure, social and environmental sectors to be attained by 2017.

In coming to the tenth year five plan (2002/2007), it operationalized the SDAN strategies.
In the same five-year plan, Nepal adopted the Leasehold Forestry Policy Guidelines, 2003;
Collaborative Forest Management Guidelines, 2003-2004; and revised the Water Resource
Policy 2003; these policies strategies were shown the commitment toward the SADAN. All
of these policy strategies valued of community participation, resource sharing, sustainable
use of resources, and privatization of services, good governance, and transparency.

In fiscal year 2007/2008; Nepal adopted to the three year interim plan (2007/08–2009/10),
the plan emphasized protection, restoration and sensible use of natural resources, and
promoting sustainable development through people’s participation in campaigns to mitigate
urban pollution, to make rural areas clean and green to ensure an individual’s right to
live in a clean environment, and to effectively implement commitments on environmental
management.

In the recent development, Nepal is ready to bring new three year plan of 2013-2015,
the three year plan (2010/11-2012/13) completed, this recent completed plan had aim
to promote green development, make development activities climate-resilient society,
mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change, and promote adaptation. This plan
focused on the mitigation to urban pollution and protects natural landscapes. Within this
plan period NAPA (National Adaption Plan for Action) finalized. The NAPA focused on
identifying agencies and ensuring their roles and responsibilities for NAPA’s meaningful
implementation. This can be summarizes that Nepal has good stock of policy strategies and
provisions of laws (Total 31 policy strategies and law provisions) regarding sustainable
development, but shaky state governance and wicked institutions are key factors that these
policy strategies and laws could not properly implementation. This has trend to drive nation
toward unstained and weak nation in steering to sustainable affairs. Further, in the name

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of implementing international agendas or commitments, various form of aids and means
entered into the country, nevertheless their contributions have hardly address to the core
national development issues and challenges and enhance country’s capacity that needed
for sustainable development. Further, ongoing political morass in the country, this has
been further deteriorating to mission of sustainable development. This havoc successfully
undermines to national strengths, capabilities and fails to mobilize domestic resources
for the sustainable development. Further, recent years’ budget programs and sectorial
policy strategies seem weak to address core issues of sustainable development. In order to
maneuver country toward sustainability by adopting knowledge, skills, and technologies
that were brought from international experiences, but it fails that the entire nation has
been fully engaged to settle political impasses. These impasses have no starting or ending
point. Most of mean has been pouring into settling to these political chaoses but end
solution has not yet been proper direction. From this system a key agenda of national level
is network, informal public private communication through which nation imposes its will
on its external environment that is essential to contemporary governance for sustainable
development. Absence of governance model (NewGov), entire state mechanism is dragged
by party political games that the system has a question of legitimacy. In conclusion, without
economic, environmental and social sustainability, the nation cannot be sustained and
strong. There must not be any dispute (s) on the sustainability.

CONCLUSION

While discussing on governance, capability approach and sustainability in the irrigation

service context, it presents many challenges and opportunities in philosophical conception.
Irrigation water flowing to the farm field and plant received, this mode of water deliver
can easily be said as resources. Irrigation water is only available that technology has been
supported to it and ensuring delivery of water. Contemporary Nepalese governance system
perceives that technology physically controls to channelize the water but experts fail to
fully internalize that it also shapes social construct under, which water is received by users
or farmers. Vincent (1997) debates that is irrigation is a technology or a resource? How
these two different perspectives affect to the sustainability of irrigation service. Further
Vincent (ibid) elaborates that irrigation is as social and socio technical system. Irrigation
service is extremely important of social, economic and environmental facets. Governing to
irrigation service is extremely difficult task that it has many complexities from all facets of
the societies including environment, now we could add one more of climate change issue.
Without considering to new mode of governance, the expected outcomes could not be
received. This paper call for rethinking on governance of irrigation services that contemporary
practices in this sector have many faulty elements and less focused on emerging issues. The
Governance’ must be efficient that steer to practicing though the societies which deals with
managing, guiding action in the realm of public and economic affair, especially needs to
focus on public policy decision making. Rethinking on governance for sustainability of
irrigation service takes place in the context of the reciprocal interaction within and between
multi level social, economic and ecological system across temporal and spatial scale.

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— 124 —
 Small Scale Irrigation Systems in Nepal:
Its role and contribution in the livelihood of the
local community in the context of Irrigation Policy
of Nepal
Prachanda Pradhan1
Floriane Clement2
Fraser Sugden3

ABSTRACT

Small scale irrigation systems have been a major contributor for food security in Nepal
but its importance, economic value and role in the socio-cultural development and poverty
alleviation have yet to be considered within the challenging context. Categorization of
size of irrigation systems as given in the Irrigation Policy of Nepal, 1992 and subsequent
amendments are systems less than 25 ha in the hills and less than 200 ha in terai are small
scale irrigation systems. There are thousands of small scale irrigation systems than in
the middle hills and mountains of Nepal supporting the subsistence livelihood of millions
of people. These systems are outside the main stream of formal irrigation policy and
institutions like the Department of Irrigation and Ministry of Irrigation of Nepal.

These systems are either built by the community of users or by the family of the land owners
close to the water sources. Therefore, they are either private or family own systems or
community owned systems depending on the source of financing of the system development.
The category is also dependent on the ownership of water source of the system. If the water
source is categorized as community ownership, it becomes community ownership of the
system. If the water source is registered to the private party, the irrigation system becomes
private or family owned irrigation systems.

Recently, small irrigation systems got attention of the policy makers, external donors,
INGO and NGOs. Government agencies such as Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local
Development through DOLIDAR, Ministry of Agriculture through the Department of
Agriculture and Ministry of Poverty Alleviation and Cooperatives have supported these
small irrigation systems. Asian Development Bank ( Community Irrigation Project),
Helvetas assisted Irrigation Project under Local Infrastructure Support for Livelihood
Improvement Program ( LILI Program), Western Upland Poverty Alleviation Program
(WUPAP) funded by IFAD support small scale irrigation systems. Ministry of Agriculture
implements through DADO the World bank funded small scale irrigation systems through

1 Patron, FMIST
2 IWMI-Nepal
3 IWMI-Nepal
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the Investment Support Grant (ISG).

There is need to rethink about the small irrigation policy. Institutional reforms of irrigation
development agencies should imbibes the new values of socio-economic change of (a)
inclusiveness, (b) gender concern, (c) self-governing local water institutions (d) promotion
of self-supporting institutions and(e) poverty alleviation. Since many agencies have
been providing assistance to SSISs, there has not been uniform and consistent policy on
intervention.

INTRODUCTION

Small scale irrigation systems are not just a means to increase food production for food
security but offer many development opportunities for the rural population and therefore
significantly contribute to poverty reduction, social and economic development and to the
creation of sustainable rural livelihoods (T.Brabben.et.al.2004).Small irrigation systems
have in the past been considered by government agencies and donors as infrastructures
but in fact represent the embodiment of local knowledge, local technology and skills, and
reflect the system of social relations, resource mobilization and institutions for natural
resource management of the community.

The importance of small-scale irrigation systems in Nepal, their economic value and role
in the socio-cultural development and poverty alleviation have yet to be acknowledged
by policy-makers and located within the challenging context of Nepal. The latter includes
a) soft state syndrome, b) absence of elected functioning government, c) post-conflict
uncertainty and political instability and d) entrenched socio-economic inequality among
the community members in the rural areas.

This paper is addressed to decision–makers within development agencies and policy

initiators and aims at highlighting the important role of small irrigation systems in
sustaining food security, improved nutrition and rural prosperity and providing guidance
to design appropriate strategies for rehabilitation interventions in the context presented in
the earlier paragraph.

EXTENT OF SMALL SCALE IRRIGATION SYSTEMS IN NEPAL

There are thousands of small scale irrigation systems ranging between 1 ha to less than
25 ha in the middle hills and mountains of Nepal supporting the subsistence livelihood of
millions of people.

Small scale irrigation systems of less than 25 ha are scattered all over Nepal, yet they
are prominently found in the middle hills and upland areas. These systems are either
built by the community of users or by the family of the land owners close to the water
sources. Therefore, they are either private or family own systems or community owned
systems depending on the source of financing of the system development. The category
is also dependent on the ownership of water source of the system. If the water source is
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categorized as community ownership, it becomes community ownership of the system. If
the water source is registered to the private party, the irrigation system becomes private or
family owned irrigation systems.

It will be useful to estimate the share of the small scale irrigation systems in the total
12 million ha irrigated area in Nepal. An overview of the status of small scale irrigation
systems can be found from the irrigation systems inventory of 4 districts of middle hill
regions. The study was commissioned to the District units of National Federation of Water
Users Association of Nepal (NFWUAN) by Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems Promotion
Trust in 2001.

Table 1: Irrigation Inventory of Four Districts

District Total Less than 25 ha % of small scale

system
Kathmandu 238 131 55%
Bhaktapur 91 37 40%
Dolakha 237 139 58%
Okhaldhunga 292 219 75%
Total 858 526 61%

Source: FMIST (2001), Kathmandu

Similarly, the assistance to FMIS was provided by WECS and IIMI in 1980s to 19 irrigation
systems in Indrawati Watershed area of Sindhupalchowk district. Out of 19 systems, 12
systems had less than 25 ha, approximately 63 % of the total. In the same area within 200
sq. km, 119 systems were recorded with total command area of 2100ha. Those 119 systems
were bigger than 5 ha. There were still many small systems of less than 5 ha unaccounted.
These systems are important for the livelihood of many people. The average command
area per system comes about 17 ha. If we apply the trend of the size of the command area,
it is estimated that out of 119 systems identified, 74 units are expected to be of less than
of 25 ha system which is categorized as small scale irrigation system. It comes out to be
approximately 66%. Out of 15000 units estimated irrigation systems in Nepal, if we assume
that 66% of them are less than 25 ha, it comes out to be about 9900 units commanding about
1, 68,300 (14% of total irrigated area of surface irrigation providing food security to over
2 million people) ha which are categorized as small scale irrigation systems in the middle
hills and upland area of Nepal. This figure excludes the irrigation systems in the terai area.

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT AND

MAINTENANCE

The National Statute of Nepal (MulkiAin, 1853, and subsequent amendments) states in
the Land Cultivation Section of MulkiAin that the community or individual can construct
irrigation system to cultivate the new land. Those systems are to be maintained annually
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by the users themselves. In case of big disaster caused by slides or flood, the local official
(jimawal or Jamindar) informs with request for assistance to the district administration.
The district administration arranges assistance for repair of the system. Similar provision
is continued in the National Statue of Nepal (MulkiAin, 2010) amended in 2010. It is also
stated that other system above the existing system can be constructed making sure the
amount of water being used by the old system should not be affected. This provision talks
about prior appropriation right as well as the water right establishment based on investment.
So it is stated in the National Statute that other people can get water for irrigation only
after the use of water by the first party having investment to bring irrigation water for
irrigation. The National Statute of Nepal (MulkiAin) states that those irrigation systems are
to be maintained and managed by the irrigators themselves. Private sector is encouraged
to develop irrigation systems both in hills and terai in Nepal. Provisions were also made in
the statute that land revenue exemptions specified period will be provided to the irrigation
developers. This was the tradition of community engagement in local water resource
management continued from the King Ram Saha’s statute which states that the conflict
relating to water should not be brought for arbitration in the court (Riccardi.1977)

The Irrigation Policy, 1992 and subsequent amendments state that medium and small scale
irrigation systems feasibility study; design will be the responsibility of the implementing
agency like DOI. Manpower required for these systems will be trained by the concerned
agency. Data base of all irrigation systems and their performance will be the responsibility
of the DOI. However , the categorization of size of irrigation systems as given in the
Irrigation Policy of Nepal, 1992 and subsequent amendments define small scale irrigation
systems as systems with a command area smaller than 25 ha in the hills and smaller
than 200 ha in terai. These systems are under the purview of local governing agencies
and user groups and therefore do not come within the jurisdiction of Department of
Irrigation (Irrigation Policy, 2004). This institutional gap has hindered the development of
a coordinated and sound strategy.

INVOLVEMENT OF MULTIPLE AGENCIES AND DONORS

Of late, the concern for enhanced food security, poverty alleviation and increased cash
crop production and market linkages have brought the small and non-conventional
irrigation systems to the attention of the policy makers, external donors, INGO and NGOs.
Government agencies such as Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development through
DOLIDAR, Ministry of Agriculture through the Department of Agriculture and Ministry
of Poverty Alleviation and Cooperatives have supported these small irrigation systems.
Asian Development Bank (Community Managed Irrigated Agriculture Sector Project
CMIASP), Helvetas assisted Irrigation Project under Local Infrastructure Support for
Livelihood Improvement Program (LILI Program), Western Upland Poverty Alleviation
Program (WUPAP) funded by IFAD support small scale irrigation systems. Department
of Agriculture also extends assistance to the small irrigation systems through District
Development Agriculture Development Offices (DADO). Ministry of Agriculture
implements through DADO the World Bank funded small scale irrigation systems through

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the Investment Support Grant (ISG). DOI has a unit on non-conventional irrigation to develop
sprinklers and drip irrigation systems. Under Irrigation and Water Resources Management
Project (IWRMP) through Investment Support Grant (ISG), DOI is implementing non-
conventional irrigation systems as well as small irrigation systems to help small farmers in
31 districts undergoing food crisis and 10 districts undergoing marginal food crisis. Ground
Water Resources Development Board helps the development of shallow tubewells (STW)
which cover about 4 ha/STW. Partly because of the multiplicity of actors involved, there
is lack of consistent policy on small scale irrigation development within the challenging
context (Pradhan.2012).

Irrigation development requires multi-sectoral knowledge of hydrology, hydraulics, civil

engineering, soil, agronomy and social institutional, environment of the command area.
Engineering is one of many components that constitute a social-ecological system (SES)
of irrigation domain. An irrigation system composed of a resource (source of water),
physical infrastructure (storage and canals), actors who manage and appropriate (farmers
and irrigation managers) and a governance structure that regulate the action and interaction
of the actors (irrigation institutions) is an example of SES (Ostrom, et. al. 2011). As of
now, the dominant approach guiding rehabilitation interventions of small scale irrigation
systems in Nepal has been only input oriented for physical infrastructure improvement.

A CASE STUDY OF IRRIGATION IMPROVEMENT INTERVENTION IN WUPAP

The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) supports the implementation of
rural development programs in many countries. The agriculture water management (AWM)
component is often included in these comprehensive programs.Recently, IFAD asked the
International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to undertake a study on “ Improving
Sustainability of Impact of AgriculturalWater Management Interventions in challenging
contexts” in five countries of Africa and Asia, including Nepal.For each irrigation system,
the fieldwork explored in detail theirsocio-biophysical environment along with the process
of intervention undertaken under WUPAP, the role, power and responsibilities of the users
committees in the implementation of the intervention and subsequently the management of
the system (Basnet 2010; 2011; Sugden, et.al.2012).

The general characteristics of the selected irrigation systems for study are as follows4:

• Most are below 25 ha of command area

• All of them are gravity irrigation systems

• The exact number of Water Users in the command area is not reported. The
number of beneficiary farmers in each system is not known

• Land ownership is secured by the individuals. Non-member of the system

4 General characteristics of the systems are given in Table.2.

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 can cultivate in the command area only as the share cropper.

• Three type of irrigation systems by ownership of water right are reported:

o Community irrigation systems owned by the members of the village

and they have rules of O&M, water distribution and management,
defined membership in the system and fulfill the obligations of
membership. Such irrigation systems are considered the property of
the community as a whole, regardless as to whose land the canal
passes through. Therefore if ownership of fields in the command
area changes, the new owners still have a right to use the water. It
is worth noting that ‘public’ implies that the canal is owned by the
village, although disputes sometimes arise with neighboring villages
over the allocation of water, or when canals from neighboring
villages pass through the land of another village.

o Lineage owned irrigation system. In some villages such as Potadha

and Chaudam in the main Seti valley, property rights for canals are
claimed by lineages, generally the descendants of the families who
originally built the canal. In these villages, there are often several
parallel canals which were built by the founders of the settlement. In
Chaudam these were built 13-14 years ago. As a result, the number
of descendants is often quite large, with one canal being collectively
owned by up to 40 households from the same lineage, and another
being owned by just five to six households. The one ‘public’ canal
has this status as it was built a very long time ago when there was
apparently only one household in the village. It is however, no longer
working due to a landslide.

o Private irrigation systems are those which have investment for

development and the source of water is registered in that individual
name. Such systems can be sold or bought in the market. The owner
can sell his extra water to others.

• With these different types of irrigation systems by ownership, there are

different types of water rights. Primary water right and secondary water
right are usually established under these conditions. The primary water
right is the water right to use first. Secondary water right is that which will
allow to the person to use water after the primary water right holder finishes
irrigation or use of water. Such water right would be established on the
basis of agreement between the first water right holder and secondary water
holder.

• It is not clear what type of water allocation is made. However, water

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 distribution is on the basis of rotation. In some systems , they have
caretaker for water distribution. In Bajhang, the person is known as Kulalo.
He is appointed by the beneficiary farmers. He is given remuneration in
kind of rice for his job of water distribution in the system. Similar system is
maintained in Mugu. The person is know as Seralo. Gilbili system in Mugu
has only 8 beneficiaries of the system and he will get remuneration in kind
for the job. At present, the system became unattractive due to more lucrative
remuneration from out-migration, the monetization of the local economy
and rising demand for cash incomes.

• These systems do not have any annual meeting of the members of the system
for collective decisions, although decisions are made on an informal basis
through consensus.

• However, they have system of annual maintenance and repair of the canal
and intake.

o In private system, owner of the land where the canal passes, the land
owner desilt and clean the canal. The source of the canal will be
collectively cleaned.

o In public and lineage owned canals, annual repair and cleaning are
carried out by collective effort.

o One member from the beneficiary family has to contribute two

times a year. It is reported that contribution is on household basis,
not proportion to the land ownership.

o During emergency caused by flood or landslide, contribution of

labor becomes strict and failure to comply will be subject to penalty.

Table 2 presents the outcomes of the intervention for each case study system.

Table: 2.Features of Case Study of Irrigation Systems undertaken by IWMI

Characteristics Chaudala Pothada Chaudam Majhigaun Gilbili, Mugu

Ownership Community Lineage ownership Lineage Community Community
Command area 19 16 21 Not known 7
Water Supply In-sufficient In-sufficient Insufficient Sufficient sufficient
After WUPAP Support
Year 2005 2007 2010 2008 2008
Intervention type Rehab. lining Rehab, Lining R e h a b , New system, pipe, R e h a b ,
Lining lining Lining

— 131 —
Status at IWMi N o t Functioning ok, L i t t l e Not completed, D a m a g e d
study, 2010 completed, small section improvement settlement flooded after one year
improved damaged by slide
section ok
Water status after increased increased negligible Increased increased
I n v e s t m e n t 216 590 200 420 380
amount in Rs’000
Per/ha cost in Rs 11,368 36,875 9,523 Not known 54,285

Source: Basnet, 2010, 2011; Sugdenet al. 2013.

ISSUES TOWARDS ASSISTANCE TO SMALL SCALE IRRIGATION SYSTEMS

An effective intervention process has to be designed in conjunction with the operation

of the SES rather than conducted as an external process of manufacturing changes to the
system. In Nepal, the engineering-centered approach has, and continues to dominate the
irrigation development. An intervention project is often considered to be no more than a
package of ‘deliverables’ to be provided by government or donor agency. Officials in these
organizations often look at an intervention project from a bureaucratic lens, focusing on
manufacturing the deliverables in accordance with some criteria and standards specified by
their organizations.

There is need to rethink about the smallScale irrigation policy. Institutional reforms of
irrigation development agencies should imbibes the new values of socio-economic
change of (a) inclusiveness, (b) gender concern, (c) self-governing local water institutions
(d) promotion of self-supporting institutions and(e) poverty alleviation. Community
engagement during intervention through project preparation to implementation and O&M
has to be the prime concern in the implementation of small scale irrigation development
programs. Since many agencies have been providing assistance to SSISs, there has not
been uniform and consistent policy on intervention.

Hence, it might be appropriate to think of establishment of a Department of Small Scale

Irrigation Development under the Ministry of Irrigation and make in charge of overall
consistent policy formulation and implementation procedures and creating a cadre of
manpower who can understand the dynamics of SSIS.

Investment in small scale irrigation development is a major issue. It might be appropriate

to consider in establishing a “Fund Board” where the users of the irrigation systems on the
basis of need can request for grant and loan for the rehabilitation and improvement of the
small scale irrigation systems.

There are many other issues to be taken into consideration for sustainable development of
Small Scale Irrigation systems.

— 132 —
Manpower development in implementing agencies for small scale irrigation development
deserve special attention keeping in view the shortage of trained human resources at the
implementing agencies at present.

There are many other issues to be taken into consideration for sustainable development
Small Scale Irrigation systems.

• Criteria for selection of the candidate system for assistance are to be

fixed keeping in view of the challenging context. Since three types
of irrigation systems by ownership are identified, can all of them be
candidate for assistance. Should only the public irrigation systems
be the candidate for assistance from the project? In any case, Water
right issue is to be sorted out to avoid the possible conflict in future
or incompletion of the project. Such situation is reported in the case
study from Bajhang.

• Selection criteria based on equity and social justice is to be fixed.

Under such condition, selection of the system on demand driven
basis could be misleading towards poverty alleviation objective
(WECs1990 and GITEC Consult, 2007, Lohanee.2010)

• Identify all FMIS in the country on a watershed basis or at the

initial stage at Village Development Committee basis for making an
inventory that establishes a database including information on local
water rights.

• After the selection of the candidate system, there should be thorough

investigation and interaction with the farmer members of the
system. Alternative design issues are to be discussed with the farmer
members. Local materials and local knowledge of the farmers are
also to be taken into consideration during design of the system.

• List of the beneficiary farmers are to be collected along with the

landholding size. The number of the beneficiary is to be established.

• If the system is to be expanded, there is need of more interaction

with the present beneficiaries and future beneficiaries. Rules , roles
and obligations are to be spelled out.

• It is to be viewed that the Water users organization has to be

self-supporting and self-managing. It has to be inclusive with
representatives of dalits and women.

• It would be useful to avoid establishing Construction committee

for physical intervention. The existing WUA should play the role
— 133 —
 of providing support during intervention. Construction committee
has caused more problems than the solutions to the problem of
construction (Ostrom, et.at. 2011).

• In order to promote community engagement, the social mobilizer

can play important role. Hence his /her skill has to be strengthened
by providing appropriate training suitable for multiple activities he/
she has to undertake in the village. Salary to the social mobilize
has to be attractive enough so that he/she is motivated to be in the
villages for the promotion of motivation activities to the villagers
and play the role of advocacy on behalf of the beneficiary farmers.
He/she has to be made accountable to the local community as well
through his / her activities in the community(Manor, et .al.1990)

• Technical manpower is to be duly trained in the capacity development

for consideration of appropriate type of structures, local construction
materials and appropriate design of the systems. During the process,
the technicians have to promote the skill of community engagement
during project selection, design, implementation and O&M of the
system. (WECS.1990) The local knowledge of the community will
be prominent when the technical people makes attempt to collect
the information of the local situation through the village elders
before design of the system as well as when the technicians get
themselves engaged in appreciative interview in the community. It
was reported in one case study that the system was designed without
due consideration of physical features like landslides and other
social and physical constraints (Sugden, et.al.2012). The type of
technical manpower required for the project is not easily available
in District Technical Office of District Development Committee.
Hence, special training including community engagement, hands on
exercise, appreciative interview and approaches towards community
empowerment has to be arranged to these field technical staff and
officers at the DTO.

• Oftentimes, it becomes difficult to provide benefit to all farmers? by

the existing irrigation system funded IFAD for improvement. Under
such circumstances, specific program like micro-irrigation for the
target group is to be planned.

• Voluntary labor mobilization is wrongly interpreted when we talk

about irrigation system construction or rehabilitation. The labor
that they provide is the part of their obligation in exchange of water
right that they have secured or area of land that is to be irrigated.
The labor contribution is obligation of the members of the irrigation
— 134 —
 system. Therefore, we have to consider about the role, responsibility
and obligations of those beneficiary farmers. In the system where
community manages the system, the contribution is made on the
basis of the size of the landholding or the share of the water right.

• There is need to strengthen complementary sector of irrigation.

Irrigation and agriculture activities should go together. Supporting
organizations like cooperatives etc are to be established with their
active participation. Agriculture support services are to be made
easily accessible.

Similar recommendations were made in the Dhulikhel Declaration as the result of the
“National Seminar on Small Scale Irrigation: Experiences, Challenges, Opportunities and
Pathways” jointly organized by DOLIDAR, SDC, Helvetas and others on December 5-6,
2012. The Declaration includes:

1. Small scale Irrigation Systems (SSIS) play critical role in supporting local
food security of small and marginal farmers.

2. It occupies large percentage of irrigated agriculture in Nepal. If we consider

the units of small scale irrigation systems, they consist of over 60 % units
of irrigation systems.

3. Provisions of Irrigation Policy are to be revisited and Implementation clarity

is to be spelled out.

4. Central and Local level technical manpower capacity to be updated

5. It is to be interfaced with agriculture production system.

6. Community engagement during project preparation and implementation is to

be strengthened so that the beneficiaries take the ownership of the systems.

7. WUAs are to be made functional and due roles and responsibilities are to
be taken by them.

8. Watershed management for the promotion and protection of Small scale

Irrigation System. (SSIS)

9. Different technical alternatives for design and construction for SSIS are to
be explored.

10. Many institutes that are working for SSIS have to work in coordination and
work together in order to develop a consistent and complementary program
and policy.
— 135 —
REFERENCES
Basnet, G. (2010). Improving Sustainability of Impacts of Agricultural Water Management
Interventions in Challenging Contexts. The Case study of IFAD-supported project WUPAP,
Nepal - Fieldwork Report I. Kathmandu, Consultancy report for IWMI.
Basnet, G. (2011). Improving Sustainability of Impacts of Agricultural Water Management
Interventions in Challenging Contexts. The Case study of IFAD-supported project WUPAP,
Nepal – Fieldwork Report II. Kathmandu, Consultancy report for IWMI.
Brabben,T,C.Angood,J.Skutch and L.Smith.(2004) Irrigation Can Sustain Rural Livelihood,
UK: HR Wallingford.
CPMO/ISPMC/DOI.2008.Social Mobilization Manuel for NGO, Stage I and II, Kathmandu:
DOI
Dixit, Ajaya, et.al. Proceedings of National Seminar on Small Scale Irrigation: Experiences,
Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways, Kathmandu: ISET
DOLIDAR, SDC and ISET-Nepal. Dec.5-6, 2012. Small Scale Irrigation, Experiences ,
Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways, Kathmandu: ISET-Nepal
Frans R. Dirk. 2005. “Surface water Management and Poverty Alleviation in the Indian
Sub-continent “ in Prachanda Pradhan and UpendraGautam (eds.). FMIS and Governance
Alternatives, Kathmandu:FMIST
GITEC Consult, et.al. 2007.CMIASP: Operational Procedural Manual ( with emphasis on
gender, ethnic , minority, dalits and other vulnerable groups, Kathmandu: DOI/CMIASP
GON/ Ministry of Water Resources, 2004. Irrigation Policy of Nepal, Kathmandu: MOWR
Lohanee, Basu. 2010.” Small Assistance to FMIS Improvement under Food Crisis
Response Program” in Prachanda Pradhan. et.al. Dynamics of Farmer Managed Irrigation
Systems: Socio-Institutional, Economic and Technical Context, Kathmandu: FMIST
Manor .S, SanguanPatamatamkul, Manuel Olin (eds.). 1990. Role of Social Organizers in
Assisting FMIS: Proceedings of the Regional Workshop of the FMIS, Colombo:IIMI
GON. 2010. MulkiAin( with amendments), Kathmandu: GON, Law Book Management
Committee
Ostrom, Elinor, Wai Fung Lam, Prachanda Pradhan and Ganesh Shivakoti. 2011. Improving
Irrigation in Asia, Sustainable Performance of an Innovative Intervention in Nepal, UK:
Edward Elgar
Pradhan, Prachanda, 1989. Patterns of Irrigation Organization: A Comparative Study of 21
FMIS, Colombo: IIMI
Pradhan, Prachanda. 2012. ”Policy , Institutions and Community in Small Scale Irrigation
development and Management in Nepal” in DOLIDAR, SDC and ISET-Nepal. Dec.5-
6, 2012. Small Scale Irrigation, Experiences , Challenges, Opportunities and Pathways,
Kathmandu: ISET-Nepal
— 136 —
Riccardi, T. “ The Royal Edits of Ram Sahaof Gorkha” in Kailash, Journal of Himalayan
Studies, Kathmandu: ratnaPustakBhandar
Sugden, Fraser, Floriane Clement, and Luna Bharati. 2012. Improving Sustainability of
Impacts of Agriculture water Management Interventions in challenging Contexts: Case
Study from Nepal. Kathmandu: IWMI ( IFAD Grant No:1073-IWMI)
Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS) and International Irrigation Management
Institute (IIMI). 1990. Assistance to FMIS, Results, Lessons and Recommendations from
An Action Research Project, Kathmandu: WECS
Yoder, Robert, Prachanda Pradhan, Edward D. Martin. 1988. Recommendations for
consideration in the Development of Nepal Irrigation Master Plan, Colombo, IIMI
Appendix.1.

Cost of Small Scale Irrigation (surface) Development in Nepal (2013)

Project\ cost Per ha Per unit of system

WUPAP1 Nrs. 11000 – 54,000 x
LILI Program2 Nrs. 1,80,000 x
CIP3
Rehabilitation Nrs.86,000
New Construction Nrs. 1,30,000
ISG4 Nrs.10,000-15,000
DADO5 Nrs. Up Nrs. 1,00,000
DDC/VDC6 Nrs 1,00,000- ?

__________________
1 Western Upland Poverty Alleviation Project funded by IFAD. Figure extracted from Fraser
Sugden’s Report. p.37
2 Local Infrastructure for Livelihood Improvement (LILI). Information shared by Mr. BhagatBista

3 Community Irrigation Project (CIP) now managed by DOLIDAR, Information shared by Mr.
Naveen Mangal Joshi

4 Investment Support Grant of World Bank specially for food crisis districts. Information shared
by Mr. BasuDevLohanee, Senior Divisional Engineer, DOI

5 District Agriculture Development Office provides grants for minor repair of the small irrigation
systems, similar support is also provided by WB-supported IWRMP also.

6 District Development Committee and Village Development Committee also provide financial
support for rehabilitation of small irrigation systems through the Users’ group and supervised by
district technical office.

— 137 —
— 138 —
 Analytical Status of Groundwater Irrigation in
Nepal
Sagar Kumar Rai
Project Chief
Groundwater Irrigation Project, DoI

Abstract

It is said that about 1766000 ha land of Nepal is irrigable. Out of this, infrastructure of
irrigation has been developed on 1311960 ha (74%) land and remained to be developed
on 454040 ha (26%) land. In irrigated land, the surface scheme, groundwater scheme,
Non-Conventional scheme and Farmers manage scheme are contributing on 715666
ha (54.7%), 342376 ha (26%), 3774 (0.3 %) and on 250144 (19%) respectively. Apart
from the Department of Irrigation, another two Government organizations; Agriculture
Development Bank (ADB) and Department of Agriculture (DoA) are also equally involving
for the development of groundwater Irrigation. In the case of groundwater irrigation,
contributing parts of DoI, ADB and DoA are 204862 ha (53 %), 167946 (43%) and 1640
(4%) respectively. On the basis of technology, Deep Tube well is irrigating for 47845 ha
(13%) land whereas the Shallow Tube well is irrigating for 341368 ha (87%) land. On the
basis of time period, Shallow Tube wells of 108649 ha (32 %) land is age of more than
15 years. Probably, all those Shallow Tube wells which are constructed before 15 years
before are not existed now. Similarly, Deep Tube wells of 20284(42 %) ha land have been
more than 20 years; even some of them have been more than 40 years too. Consequently,
most of them are not in function at present since of damage of pumps and impellors. All
together about 128933 (33%) ha land which is showing irrigated through groundwater
resources in the record may be defunct. Therefore, the Department of Irrigation should
update the existing data. For this, study of re-assessment of groundwater irrigation in
Nepal is urgently needed.

Introduction

The Terai Plain of Nepal is highly potential for groundwater resources because it is a part of the
biggest groundwater basin in the world known as Indo-Gangetic Basin. The unconsolidated
porous material of the basin has high capacity to store or release the groundwater resources.
Presently, about 1.4 million people are living in the Terai and all of them are utilizing the
groundwater resources for drinking, domestic, irrigation, industries, and for cattle purposes.
So it can be concluded that approximately half of the entire population of Nepal has been
depending on the groundwater resources directly. Among of various uses, high amount of
the groundwater resources is utilizing in the sector of irrigation. Now, about 3420,000 ha
land of Terai is irrigated from this resource which is about 26 % of the total irrigated land
of the country (Figure 1). During the winter (dry) season, most of the surface drainages
— 139 —
are dry up and the groundwater is only a main resource for overcome the burning situation.
Therefore, the trend of groundwater utilization for irrigation is rapidly increasing in the
country.

Figure 1: Agricultural Land in Nepal

Present Status

According to the data of Nepal government about 2641000 ha land of the country is
agricultural land. Out of this about 1766000 ha is irrigable. According to the data or the
Department of Irrigation (DoI), 2068 the irrigation infrastructure has been developed in
1311960 ha land. In which, contribution of surface scheme, groundwater scheme, Non-
Conventional scheme and Farmers Manage Irrigation Scheme are in 715666 ha (54.7%),
342376 ha (26%), 3774 ha (0.3%) and in 250144 ha (19%) respectively (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Present status of Irrigation

— 140 —
According to the Reassessment of Groundwater Irrigation in Nepal, GDC (1990), about
190000 ha land of Terai is potential for Deep Tube well(DTW)and about 720000 ha land is
potential for Shallow Tube well (STW). Similarly, as per the Shallow Aquifer Investigation
Project, UNDP (1994) the 924000 ha land is potential for Shallow Tube well and 574000
ha land is potential for Deep Tube well (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Groundwater potential area

On the basis of technology about 47845 ha land is irrigating through the DTW and about
341368 ha land is irrigating through the STW (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Groundwater irrigation on the basis of techniques

— 141 —
If it is compare between the potential land and irrigated land, the irrigated land through the
DTW is only 13 % and STW is only 25 % (Figure 4).

Figure 5: Comparison of Irrigated area

The involved organizations for groundwater development in the country are Department of
Irrigation (DoI), the Department of Agriculture (DoA) and the Agricultural Development
Bank (ADB). The contributing part of the DoI is about 204862 ha (53%). In which DTW part
is about 41785 ha and the STW part is about 163077 ha. In the same way the contributing
part of the DoA and the ADB are 16405 ha (4%) and 167546 ha (43%). In the DoA, the
DTW part is about 6060 ha and the STW part is about 16405 ha. In ADB there is only STW
contribution i.e. 167946 ha (Table 10).

Table 10: Involved Organization

S.No Organization DTW (ha) STW (ha) Total (ha) %

1 DoI 41785 163077 204862 53
2 ADB 0 167946 167946 43
3 DOA 6060 10345 16405 4
Total 47845 341368 389213 100

Development of the groundwater irrigation in 389213 ha land of Nepal is neither done by a

single project nor at the one time. Its development was in more than the dozens of different
projects in different periods. The name and the periods of the DTW and the STW projects
held in different periods are given as below (Figure 6, Figure 7).

— 142 —
 Figure
i 66: Involved projects
j ffor DTW iirrigation
i i

Figure 7: Involved projects for STW irrigation

The groundwater Irrigation from the STW is developed in 30 different districts of the Nepal.

— 143 —
In which Terai comprises 20 districts, Inner Terai comprises 2 district and the districts
under Middle Mountain comprises the 8 districts (Figure 8). Similarly the groundwater
irrigation from DTW is developed in only 22 districts of the Terai and Inner Terai (Figure
8, Figure 9).

Figure 8: District wise distribution of DTW

Figure 9: District wise distribution of STW

It is already mentioned that in the case of DTW about 47875 ha land is able to irrigate yet
now out of 574000 ha potential land. It is about 8.34 %. Similarly in the case of STW about
— 144 —
341468 ha land is able to irrigate yet now out of 924600 ha. The potential area and the
irrigated area of both DTW and the STW are shown in Table 11, Table 12.

Table 11: Potential and developed area of DTW

District Potential Area Developed Area Remained to be Developed Area

(ha) (ha) Developed (ha) (%)
1. Jhapa 47900 680 47220 1.42
2. Morang 48600 551 48049 1.13
3. Sunsari 50200 360 49840 0.72
4. Udayapur 120
5. saptari 16600 440 16160 2.65
6. Siraha 8300 1718 6582 20.7
7.Dhanusha 34100 3289 30811 9.65
8. Mahotari 48200 1773 46427 3.68
9. sarlahi 54400 956 53444 1.76
10. Rautahat 3800 900 2900 23.68
11. Bara 28300 168 28132 0.59
12. parsa 40600 80 40520 0.20
13. Makawanpur 80
14. Chitawan 39000 1511 37489 3.87
15. Nawalparasi 3900 1680 2220 43.08
16. Rupandehi 26200 22109 4091 84.39
17. Kapilvastu 5200 1850 3350 35.58
18. Dang 12800 2165 10635 16.91
19. Banke 2300 3055 -755 132.83
20. Bardiya 30800 1200 29600 3.90
21. kailali 55800 2160 53640 3.87
22. Kanchanpur 17000 1030 15970 6.06
Total 574000 47875 526325 8.34

— 145 —
Table 12: Potential and developed area of STW

District Potential Area Developed Area Remained to be Developed Area

(ha) (ha) Developed (ha) (%)
1. Jhapa 56200 27559 28641 49.04
2. Morang 83600 27867 55733 33.33
3. Ilam 113
4. Sunsari 53400 27132 26268 50.81
5. Udayapur 1474
6. saptari 24700 15340 9360 62.11
7. Siraha 50400 18707 31693 37.12
8.Dhanusha 51600 16081 35519 31.16
9. Mahotari 48400 11919 36481 24.63
10. Sindhuli 279
11. sarlahi 52700 17321 35379 32.87
12. Rautahat 46600 17711 28889 38.01
13. Bara 54800 26565 28235 48.48
14. parsa 41500 9246 32254 22.28
15. Makawanpur 117
16. Chitawan 50000 7030 42970 14.06
17. Gorkha 100
18. Tanahu 4
19. Nawalparasi 19900 12731 7169 63.97
20. Rupandehi 54500 22441 32059 41.18
21. Kapilvastu 58800 4614 54186 7.85
22. Palpa 50
23. Dang 34300 7680 26620 22.39
24. Pyuthan 125
25. Arghakhanchi 167
26. Banke 17600 11405 6195 64.8
27. Bardiya 46900 17635 29265 37.60
28. Surkhet 75
29. kailali 53800 23539 30261 43.75
30. Kanchanpur 24900 16441 8459 66.03
Total 924600 341468 585636 36.93

The development of the groundwater resources for irrigation purpose was beginning from
40 years ago (1973). Since then the activities are still in continuous process. If we make
the clear demarcation of 15 years periods for all those DTWs and STWs than we found that

— 146 —
about 395 DTWs are more than 15 years old. The irrigated land from these DTWs is about
20284 ha (Table 13). In the case of STWs, about 31825 STWs are more than 15 years old.
The irrigated land from these STWs is about 108649 ha (Table 14).

Figure 10: Water pumping from DTW Water pumping from STW

Table 13: More than 15 years old DTW

S.No Projects/Institutions TotaI Older than 15 Years

Nos (ha) Nos (ha)
I Kailali Kanchanpur TIP (1973-1976) 10 210 10 210
2 Bhairahawa Lumbini GIP (1973-2000) 165 20309 84 10155
3 SIRDP (2042-2046) 15 550 15 550
4 Kapilvastu Nelkup Project (2039-2049) 3 60 3 60
5 Mahotari Nelkup Project (2045-2048) 52 823 26 412
6 Seti IRDP (1986-1996) 29 1100 15 550
7 Irrigation Line of Credit (2044-2048) 113 3475 57 1738
8 Irrigation Development Project (1998-2004) 17 680 0 0
9 Nepal Irrigation Sector Project (2045-2049) 144 4928 70 2415
10 Narayani Zone Irrigation DP 29 700 15 414
11 Arjunkhola Irrigation Project 3 0 0 0
12 Agriculture Perspective Plan (2054-2074) 166 6640 17 680
13 Rahat GIP (2003-2008) 22 880 0 0
14 Bhairahawa IP (2045-2049) 3 70 3 70
15 IWRMP(2065-2069) 34 1360 0 0
16 DoA (JADP) 160 6090 80 3030
Total 969 47875 395 20284

— 147 —
Table 14: More than 15 years old STW

S.No Projects/Institutions TotaI Older than 15 Years

Nos (ha) Nos (ha)
I Kailali Kanchanpur TIP (1973-1976) 82 328 82 328
2 SIRDP (2042-2046) 2325 11625 2325 11625
3 Irrigation Line of Credit (2044-2048) 115 853 115 853
4 Nepal Irrigation Sector Project (2045-2049) 43 378 43 378
5 Community shallow tubwell IP (1995-2000) 715 4855 300 2040
6 Agriculture Perspective Plan (2054-2074) 40710 101775 3562 9045
7 Community GISP (1996-2007) 10767 37685 0 0
8 Setbariya IP (2043-2044) 15 220 15 220
9 Baisebichuwa IP (2037-2040) 25 150 25 150
10 EFDRB (Koshi STW) 700 1625 0 0
11 Mahona IP (2054-2056) 15 37 15 37
12 Rahat STW (2003-2008) 1182 3546 0 0
13 DOA (JADP) 4138 10345 0 0
14 ADB 50685 167946 25343 83973
Total 111517 341368 31825 108649

In the percentage about 32% STW and about 42 % DTWs are more than 15 years old

Figure 11: Life period of Tubewells

— 148 —
According to the reports which are based on the DTW and STWs the life periods of the
STWs are about 12 to 15 years. The STW will be damage due to the causes of damage of
pipes or screen and due to the cause of sand filling or some mechanical causes. However
in the case of DTW, DTW itself will not be damage within the 15 years. Its life periods are
about 30 years but the life periods of pumps and motors are about 12 to 15 years. Several
chemical, mechanical and electrical problems will be seen in the pump and motor by which
the pump and motor couldn’t function as proper way. Thus within the 15 years periods, the
pumps and motors should be change.

Conclusion

According to the report of the DoI, the developed infrastructure of the groundwater
irrigation is about 342376 ha out of total developed infrastructure in 1311960 ha. In
the groundwater infrastructure, about 969 DTWs and the 111517 STW are constructed.
However, 395 DTWs are seen older than 15 years which covers about 20248 ha (42%)
irrigated land. Similarly, the 31825 STWs are seen older than 15 Years and its coverage
land is about 108649 ha (32%). All together about 128933 ha (33%) land which showing
irrigated through the groundwater irrigation may not be existed in the field.

Recommendation

To resolve the cases, DoI should be done

1. Either rehabilitation program for both Shallow and Deep Tube well or

Revision and update the present data of groundwater irrigation.

2. Field based re-assessment program of the groundwater irrigation of Nepal to

find out the real status of the DTWs and STWs.

Bibliography

CBS (2003) Statistical Year Book of Nepal, Government of Nepal, Kathmandu

CIWEC/East Consult Master Plan for Irrigation Development in Nepal, Working Paper –
Sixth Issue CIWEC/East Consult, Kathmandu

DOI (2069) Sichai Hand Book, Jawalakhel, Government of Nepal, Lalitpur

— 149 —
Figures updated upon F.Y. 2068/69, Groundwater Resources Development Board,
Babarmahal, Kathmandu

GDC/UK; East Consult ( ) Reassessment of the Groundwater Development Strategy for

Irrigation in the Terai, Vol.3, Kathmandu

NPC (1995) Agricultural Perspective Plan,Final Report, National Planning commission

and ADB, Kathmandu

NPC (2000) Water Resources Strategy formulation Phase II Study, Government of Nepal,
Kathmandu

Sharma, C K; Poudel S (1995) Irrigation and Water Control, Kathmandu

Sharma, C K (1974) Groundwater Resources of Nepal, Kathmandu

Sharma, C K (1995) Shallow (Phreatic) Aquifer of Nepal, Kathmandu

WECS (2005) National Water Plan, Government of Nepal, Kathmandu

— 150 —
 Ground Water Resources in Nepal and Role of
GWRDB in its Management
Nir Shakya1
Surendra Raj Shrestha2

ABSTRACT

Groundwater (GW) has played an important role in sustainable development of many parts
of the world by providing water for domestic, industrial and agricultural uses. In terai
Nepal, Groundwater is the main source for irrigation and municipal drinking water supply.
terai plain is regarded as the continuation of Indo-Gangetic plain and constitute very
thick layers of alluvial sediments, which has a huge renewable ground water potential.

It is reported that annual GW balance of terai plain is in surplus in compare to the abstraction
rate. But excessive and unplanned use of this precious resource may create serious threats
to its sustainability which is happening in Kathmandu valley. Due to high water demand i.e,
325 Million liters per Day (MLD), the daily abstraction rate of groundwater is increasing
rapidly by reason of lack of surface resources in the Kathmandu valley. The abstraction
of groundwater is reported to be about 78.4 MLD. The exact situation of groundwater
extraction within the valley is however not known because there is no legal requirement or
well established institutional mechanism to regulate or control it.

Shallow aquifers are also over - exploited, unprotected and uncontrolled. Similarly, Dhunge
Dharas have dried up in many areas of Kathmandu valley and built up area is increasing
year by year even within the identified recharge area. It is therefore, detail exploration is
need of the time and a following suggestive measure has to be applied to solve the threats.

• One of the appropriate techniques would be artificial recharge through

surface spreading, which is still possible at the upper reaches of Bagmati
and Manohara rivers. However, in the built up area, the only way for GW
recharge is through the well injection.

• Numerous springs from limestone karstified zones are found in the southern
frame of the valley with totaled discharges 497 Lit/sec or 43 MLD can be
the very good option to fulfill the present water demand in some extent. If it
came to be feasible its exploration would require less investment and short
time consuming in comparison to other drinking water projects.

1 Ministry of Irrigation, Singh Durbar, Kathmandu, Nepal

2 Ground Water Resources Development Board, Babar Mahal, Kathmandu, Nepal

— 151 —
Now the question arises, which organization is responsible for these works? There are
many institutions working in the groundwater development and management. Among these
institutions Ground water Resources Development Board (GWRDB) established in 1976,
which has been mandated with oversees policy related to groundwater and implementing
body of groundwater resources development may be the obvious choice. With extensive
experienced and comprising related qualified experts Ministry of Irrigation/GWRDB can
play a vital role, but which in not happening now. In this perspective GWRDB may be the
most important actor for

• In Groundwater Investigation & development

• In groundwater Database Management

• In Groundwater Regulation

Kathmanu valley Water Supply Management Board (KVWSMB) established in 2006 with
the mandate of regulating the groundwater extraction and issuing license do not have
related experts can be considered as a good example of ground water mismanagement in
Nepal.

INTRODUCTION

Nepal is a landlocked mountainous country, geographically: it is bordering with China in

the North and India in the South, East and West. Nepal lies between latitudes 260 22’ N to
300 27’ N and longitudes between 800 4’ E to 880 12’ E, covering an area of 147,181 square
kilometers, of which East to West length is 885 km and the mean width form North to south
is 193 km. One-third of Nepal is covered by plain area (“Terai”), which lies in the southern
part of the country having elevation from 100m, to 200m, above mean sea level.

GENERAL HYDROGEOLOGY OF NEPAL

Groundwater is one of the resourced of Nepal. It is found in most parts of the country.
Only the amount and depth vary from place to place. The preliminary hydrogeological
mapping suggests that except the unfractured granite, gneiss and meta-sediments of higher
metamorphic grade in midland and higher Himalaya, the rest of the geology has potential
for groundwater. Among the potential, loose sediments of Terai and inner Terai, karstified
and fractued carbonate rocks of midland and Tethys group are considered to be highly
productive aquifers. And unconsolidated deposits of Kathmandu and Surkehet valleys,
Siwalik rocks, non-karstic but fractured carbonate rocks in lower Himalaya, Crystalline
Complex and Tethys group are interpreted as moderately productive aquifers (figure 1).

— 152 —
 Highly produc ve aquifers

Moderately produc ve aquifers

No ground water poten al

Figure-1:- Preliminary Ground water Potential Map of Nepal

Except this preliminary map, there is no nationwide hydrogeological study out so far.
However, the uses of groundwater are well known throughout the country in the form of
springs, dug-wells and tubewells. In compare to other parts, groundwater investigation
and development are concentrated in Kathmandu valley, inner Terai (structural basin) and
main Terai only.

In hills and mountain region of Nepal, springs sources are used extensively for drinking and
irrigation purposes and detail investigation works has not been done yet. But ground water
resources development works for irrigation and drinking purposes is mainly concentrated
in “Terai” (plain) area. It is therefore, the text is very relevant to brief here in two parts; (i)
Groundwater resources in terai and (ii) Groundwater resource in the Kathmandu Valley.

GROUNDWATER RESOURCES INVESTIGATION IN NEPAL: AT A GLANCE

The Major during investigation are:

1. Groundwater feasibility survey by Geophysical methods and Exploration of tube

wells in Terai district of Nepal.

2. Construction of Deep & Shallow Tube wells for Aquifer test. These wells are also
development and Environment Impact.

3. Monitoring of water level, water quality and quantity its interpretation for further
development and Environment Impact.

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Concerning with above works, GWRDP is fully involved in the investigation and
development of Groundwater resources for irrigation purpose mainly in the Teria and
inner Terai. Those technical data are used to delineate groundwater irrigation development
projects.

Hydrogeology of the Terai

The Terai plain is a continuation of Indo-gangetic plain, lies southern part of mountain
range of Nepal. The Terai aquifers occur in the following two hydro-geological significant
depositional units:

• Bhabar zone is situated in the foothill of the Siwalik range consisting of alluvial and
colluvial coarse sediments (boulder, cobble and pebbles). This is the major recharge
area of terai palin. The Bhabar zone sediments consist of permeable, unconfined
aquifer, deep water table. High rainfall occurs in this zone about 1700 mm in compare
to the southern area.
• The southern zone (terai Plain), which consists of thick sediments of Indo-Gangetic
floodplain, comprises clay, silt, sand and gravels, these sediments are merged with
Bhabar zone. Fine sediments are predominant towards the Indian border. This zone
gets relatively low rainfall in compared to the Bhabar zone; recharge amount is high
due to large area of unconsolidated sediments.

There are about 1000 deep and 112000 shallow tubewells operating in the Terai. They are
used for domestic, industrial and irrigation purposes as well. The irrigation use is estimated
to be 1146 MCM on the basis of 1000 deep tubewells operating at the rate of 40 to 60 litre
per second for 1000 hours and 112000 shallow tubewells operting at the rate of 10 litre per
second for 200 hours. Comparing the total withdrawal, the groundwater use in the Terai is
less than 15% of the renewable annual recharge.

Mainly two types of aquifers in the Terai are being tapped i) Shallow aquifer, (upto 50m),
below groundwater level, unconfined to semi-confined aquifers and ii) Deep aquifers,
(normally from 50m to 200m below ground level), confined aquifers. The total thickness of
the sediment pile under the Terai is still unknown. For water well investigation purpose, the
maximum drilling depth is 450m.( drilled by Department of Water Supply and Sewerage in
Nepalgunj). It has been noticed that deeper drilling (upto 3500m) has taken place in eastern
terai for petroleum exploration purpose drilled by Department of Mines and Geology. The
Annual groundwater balance of terai plain is as follows:
• Ground Water Recharge 8800 MCM
• Pumping Discharge for Irrigation 1146 MCM
• Pumping Discharge for Drinking Purpose 462 MCM
• GW Extraction for Industrial use 115 MCM
• Balance +7077 MCM

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The total area irrigated by the groundwater in the terai area is shown in table no 1. So far
only about 42% of the area having good potential for the groundwater irrigation has been
provided by the irrigation in the terai. The table indicates that there is huge scope for the
groundwater irrigation in the terai.

Table no 1: Current status of groundwater irrigation in terai

Total Poten al Area

Irriga on Scheme Irrigated Area(Ha) % of Developed Area
for Irriga on(Ha)

Shallow Tubewell 726000 338767 46.66

Deep Tubewell 190000 45935 24.17

Total 916000 384702 41.99

Water Quality

The quality of groundwater in terai is generally suitable for irrigation as well as drinking
purpose. Especially for drinking purpose, the groundwater from confined aquifers is better
than those form unconfined aquifer.

Arsenic is noticed in some of the wells of the terai. In most of the terai districts, 5% of
the samples have shown more than 0.05 mg/lit of Arsenic, but in some parts of the terai
districts, 26% of the samples show more than 0.05/lit of Arsenic. The cause of arsenic
content in the terai areas is still to be known by detail investigation.

GROUND WATER RESOURCES IN KATHAMANDU VALLEY

Kathmandu valley, which contains the urbanized centers of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and
Bhaktapur cities, is an intermontane circular basin, which covers as area of about 650
sq.km (Figure no-2). The average altitude of the valley floor is about 1350 m above means
sea level and surrounding hills are 2800m above sea level.

Kathmandu valley is surrounded by the mountains of lesser Himalayan range, are

composed of intensely folded, faulted and fractured bedrock that includes igneous and
meta-sedimentary rocks of Precambrian to Devonian age consist of quartzite, phyllites,
schists, slates, limestone and marbles with intrusions of acid and basic rocks. Those rocks
are also form the basement complex beneath the floor of Kathmandu valley. The valley is
filled with a thick succession of late Pleistocene and quaternary unconsolidated sediments
of fluvio-lacustrine origin. The sediments cover has a thickness of 550m to 600m in the
central part of the valley.

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Hydrogeology of Kathmandu Valley:
There are three types of sediments in the valley. They are:
I. Arenaceous sediments (Sandy)
II. Argillaceous sediments (clayey),
III. Intermediate type of arenaceous and argillaceous deposits.
From the above sediments distribution and river deposited sediments in the Kathamandu
valley floor, it has been divided into three ground water districts (Figure no 3).

• The northern district is the main recharge zone with high transmissivity (83-1963 m2/
day) and the water quality water quality is good.
• The central district has shallow aquifers supporting stone spouts, dug well and shallow
tubewells. Thick impermeable clay layers follows these shallow acquires. Which is
underlain by permeable coarse sediments called deep aquifers of Kathmandu valley.
These deep aquifers have rather low transmissivity (32-960 m2/day) and contain
methane and hydrogen sulphide gases. Ground water in this deep zone is non-
rechargeable and according to radioactive isotope dating, its age as about 200,000
years.
• The southern district has thick impermeable clay with underlying gravel deposits of
low transmisivity, and the aquifers are not developed much as other two GW districts.

Source: JICA

Figure no 3: Groundwater Potential of Kathmandu Valley

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Water Quality

Groundwater from both deep and shallow aquifers is suitable for irrigation without
any treatment but for drinking and industrial uses, treatment is necessary. Mostly
the shallow aquifer pollution is high in the area beneath the main cities in the valley.
The shallow aquifers are polluted by industrial effluents and also form the polluted
rivers infiltrating to the shallow aquifers. Shallow tubewells are less contaminated
than dug wells and deep tubewells are least affected. Pollution concentrations are
higher during rainy period.

Water demand

Ground water resources are extensively used in Kathmandu valley, in spite of

limited scientific investigations of the resources. The present water demand in the
Kathmandu valley is 325 MLD but only 90 to 140 MLD of water is available for
supply and 50% of it is obtained from the ground water resources by means of
shallow and deep tubewells. The estimated number of deep and shallow tubewells
including dug wells, rower pump, and hand pumps are about 1000 and 5000
respectively. Although 75 MLD of ground water is abstracting in Kathmandu valley.
Out of which 60MLD of ground water are extracting from production tubewells and
springs, and 10-15 MLD from dug wells, rower pumps and hand pumps. According
to the study, Nepal Water Supply Corporation (NWSC) alone consumes nearly 30
MLD. JICA, 1990, suggested that ground water in Kathmandu valley can be drawn
only about 15 MLD. The well fields of the NWSC in the deep aquifer have shown
a drawdown of the surface by 15-20 meters since the construction of the wells
in 1984/85 indicating substantial overexploitation. A report of Metcalf and Eddy/
CEMAT consultant and the ADB (Asian Dev. Bank) as a part of Melamchi Water
supply Project noted that both static and pumping water level have been depleted
in most part of the Kathmandu valley. It is reported that water level in Kathmandu
valley is lowering at an average rate of 2.5 meter per year. It has been found that
more than two dozens of valley’s stone spouts, which is an alternative source to
the water-scarce in the valley gone dry and water levels at “Ranipokhari” (might
be constructed in medieval times for infiltration pond) are declining. In Nepal,
there does not exist any legislative measures to control the high abstraction rate of
ground water. Due to absence of ground water act, the private drilling companies
can install the vary depth of tubewells as per the consumer’s demand without any
management. Table 2 & 3 show groundwater abstraction in Kathmandu valley and
decreasing trend of water levels in heavy pumping areas.

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 Table 2: Groundwater abstraction in the valley

User Total (MLD)

NWSC 29.17
Plastics, Textiles, Bottlers and Enterprises 4.1
Dying, Washing, Carpet Industries 0.57
Government Institutions 5.36
Embassies 0.43
Hotels 6.53

Total 59.26

Table 3: Aquifer Depletion

Location Year SWL (m) Year SWL (m)

Northern Well Field 1984 15 1999 30

Central Well Field 1976 Artesian 1999 20

Southern Well Field 1976 Artesian 1999 13

Alternative Sources of groundwater in the valley

The lime stones of the Precambrian to Devonian rocks surround the Kathmandu
valley. Intensely folded, faulted and fractured limestones are distributed SE and SW
rims of the valley. The estimated area of the limestone is about 50 sq.km. Numerous
springs from limestone zones are found in the southern frame of the valley. The
discharge increases in post monsoon. The springs originate at the slopes and base
of the mountain slopes, mostly from the fractured limestone or bedrocks. Large
discharge and variation of the seasonal discharge from these springs show that the
connection between the spring to springs. The nature and the total potential of this
source have not yet been studied. Total yield remains unchanged throughout the
year and these hard rock zones may have enough potential to supply the present
demand in the valley. If the source were found satisfactorily, it would be a great
relief to solve the problem of water demand in Kathmandu valley to some extent.
Distribution of limestone rocks to be studied is shown in figure 4.
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 Figure 4: Schematic diagram of Chandragiri limestone

Source: Supporting Investments in Water Security in River Basin (ADB, JWA)

Challenges in GW Resource Management

Kathmandu Valley:

- Ground water is over- utilizing in Kathmandu valley to fulfill the increasing

water demand.

Terai Region:

- Ground water is under- utilizing in this region

- Arsenic concentration is reported from many parts of terai. Study to be

concentrated in detail, water sample analysis to be done at laboratory rather
than field kits.

- Increase of urbanization and industrialization near the Bhabar zone

(Recharge zone) of terai may pollute the whole aquifer systems. To solve
this legal aspect should be developed.

Problem encountered

There is no control mechanism so far to limit ground water abstraction in the country.
People are free to construct tubewell wherever they like and also can pump any quantity of

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water without considering its effect. Virtually in some area like Kathmandu valley, ground
water being mined.

There is no information on the quantity of ground water being used by the industries other
government and non-government agencies. As a result, there is no exact data on the number
of existing tubewells operated in the public and private sector in the country. Kathmandu
valley Water Supply Management Board (KVWSMB) established in 2006 with the mandate
of regulating the ground water extraction and issuing license do not have related experts
can be considered as a good example of ground water mismanagement in Nepal.

There is no control on spacing of tubewell. Some places interference problems are

encountered. The unlimited number of tubewells construction, unlimited abstraction and
unplanned tubewell construction can create the pollution in aquifer which will hazardous
to the human health. Water pollution is a serious problem near urban areas. The problem is
expected to increase due to rapid pace of urban growth unless measures are taken to control
and treat effluents.

ROLE OF GROUND WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT BOARD (GWRDB)

Proper use of ground water in Kathmandu valley and systematic managing, role of GWRDB
is important, but which is not happening in present context. In this perspectives, GWRDB
may be the sole authority for systematize investigation, and management of ground water
in the country as per mandatory works given to GWRDB. The following task ahead, is
necessary to sanction immediately by government in related to investigation and regulation.

In GW Investigation

• Groundwater Management in Kathmandu Valley

• Groundwater Characteristics

• Contamination level of shallow aquifers

• Shallow aquifers exploitation

• Groundwater balance in respect to the climate change

• Possibility & quantification of artificial recharge

• Study of hard rock aquifers

• Possibilities of exploitation groundwater resources in Hills & mountains as well

as in ”Tar” areas

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 • Study on recharge of aquifers in Terai plain from Bhaber Zone applying available
modern technology.

• Inter-relationship between surface runoff and groundwater along the major rivers.

• Established as a centre for the groundwater database

In GW Regulation:

• Should be run as national level regulatory as well as controlling body for

groundwater resources

• Policy making

• Development of guidelines for the proper utilization of groundwater

• Design of groundwater development projects

• Project monitoring

• Evaluation and impact study of groundwater related projects

• Training centre for the groundwater related technicians

CONCLUSIONS

GW use in Terai is very less than total recharge amount

Bhabar zone is the main recharge zone of Terai, it needs to be protected

Investigation works in the Kathmandu valley still have to be done for the study of
aquifer system and nature of recharge of groundwater

Artificial groundwater recharge applying suitable technology to balance

the overdraft condition

The withdrawal of the GW in Kathmandu valley is more than recharge

rate,

For unlimited abstraction and pollution control , the regulating institution

should be established

An alternative source for supplement of water supply in Kathmandu

valley, an appropriate technology is to be applied in the limestone
terrain.
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 Ground water is a valuable resource of the country; that’s why, it is
needed to have a responsible government agency to protect it, which
will manage the depletion of the ground water, licensing for the new
tube well construction and metering for the existing tube wells etc.

REFERENCE

Hydrogeological Conditions and potential Barrier Sediments in the

Kathmandu valley (1998) Technical co-operation project, Environmental
Geology, Kingdom of Nepal, HMG and Federal Republic of Germany.

Jha,M.G. and et al. (1995-96) the Assessment of Ground water pollution

in the Kathmandu valley, Nepal, Report on joint Nepal – Australia Project.

Kansakar, D.R (2001) Ground Water Resources in the Hills and Mountain
Regions of Nepal, Unpublished Report, Dept. of Irrigation P.25

Reassessment of the Ground Water Dev. Strategy for Irrigation in Terai

(1994) HMG, Dept. of Irrigation, Ground Water Resources Dev. Project
(GWRDP).

Sharma, C.K. (1973) Geology of Nepal P189.

Sharma, C.K (1995) Shallow Aquifers of Nepal.

Uprety, S.R. (2000) Hydrogeology and Geo-seismology. Annex-10. Water

resources Strategy, Nepal.

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 Annex – 4
Photos of Workshop

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