Research On The Reform Of Irrigation Management Institution: Zaohe Irrigation District As A Case Study

Nowadays, more and more regions around the world face growing pressure of water shortage. Great concerns have been raised on this issue, especially in agricultural sector. Usually people depend on the construction of water projects and the development of water-saving technology to tackle water shortage problem. But gradually people realize that mismanagement is also one of the most important reasons causing water shortage. In addition, it becomes more and more diseconomy to build new water projects. So the reform of irrigation management has been put on agenda.For water and its accessorial facilities are indiscerptible public goods, and water is also the basic means of living and production, it's difficult and risky to allow water allocation under the control of free market. So decentralization of management, proper liberalization of water market and participation of nongovernmental organization (NGO) become the main characteristics of the popular water management. Since the 1980s, facing low efficiency of government-run irrigation system and growing budget pressure on it, more and more government began to transfer the management to water user's association (WUA) or NGO. China began to carry this kind of reform in some irrigation districts since the mid of the 1990s.Based on the theory of institutional economics, this dissertation studies the reform of irrigation management institution. Using comparative analysis, normative and positive analysis, we firstly exam the reason and the process of the reform. Then we try to find out factors infecting the efficiency of WUA and discuss the reform of water pricing and constrain it facing. Thirdly we pay our attention to the implement and results of the reform, next we summarize the lessons we can learn from abroad in participatory irrigation management (PIM) reform. Finally we give some advice on how to put forward the reform smoothly and effectively.The main object of this research is trying to test the results of the reform, and to analyzethe possible impact of the WUA and water pricing reform, and to find out factors constraining PIM reform. Our research will contribute to the irrigation management reform. It will help to set up relative water management policy, accelerate the reform, promote efficient usage of water and realize sustainable development of irrigation districts. It has both theoretical and practical significance.In the reform of PIM, powerful WUA is critical. But there is little research on the sustainable development of WUA and on what kind of circumstance can WUA affects the efficiency of irrigation system. This dissertation builds relative analysis framework, and systematically analyzes factors affecting WUA's running and the sustainability of WUA. Both internal and external factors can affect the efficiency and sustainable running of WUA. These factors either affect WUA or performance of irrigation system directly. External factors include natural characters of irrigation district, technology, social and economy factors, government policy and the governing of WUA. Internal factors include the timing and mode of WUA's founding, composing of WUA's stuff, scale of WUA, collaboration of different WUAs, and the role of leaders in WUA.Water pricing policy is often considered as one of the important measures to promote water-using efficiency and compensate the cost of irrigation system. But previous researches lack the analysis on the constrains facing by water pricing reform and the detailed analysis on the result bring by water pricing reform, only emphasizing the role of water pricing reform. Our research starting from the analysis of the price elasticity of irrigation water, discuss the limitation of water pricing reform.This research establishes an index system to evaluate the performance of irrigation management and results of the reform. The management reform in Zaohe irrigation district had significant improvement on its performance in channel maintenance, and water fee collection. It also reduced water-using conflict. But farmers' recogni...