Analysis On The Effect Of Management And Protection Mode And Relational Network On The Effects Of Management And Protection Of Small-scale Irrigation And Water Conservantion Facilities

Small-scale irrigation systems form an intrinsic part of modern day agriculture.Their construction,management and maintenance are all closely connected to the wellbeing of agricultural products.In recent years,the construction of small-scale irrigation systems has attracted growing attention from policy makers,resulting in the steadily increasing investment from the government in this sector.However,the problems of lack of management and protection,and the unsound management mechanism have become increasingly prominent.Consequently,small-scale irrigation systems were unable to play their designated role.Enhancing the effects management and protection of small-scale irrigation systems requires the close cooperation of government,farmers,village committees and water users' associations.The government provides policy support and certain capital investment,at the same time,individuals and grass-roots organizations such as farmers,village committees,and water users' associations need to be connected on a micro-level.During the connection process,the modes of management and protection can play an external role in setting up contractual and regulatory constraints.Social network is the “bridge” or “binder” in this process of deep connection and serve as an informal system promoting farmers' participation in management and protection to improve the overall effect.Therefore,mode of management and social network are key considerations to take when exploring the effects of management and protection of small-scale irrigation systems.In this study,we seeks to analyze,on the basis of systematically outlining theories relating to management and protection mechanisms,social network and the effect of management and protection,the availability of small-scale irrigation systems and the status of their management and protection utilizing the survey data of 1952 households in 100 villages from five provinces,namely Shaanxi,Henan,Ningxia,Inner Mongolia and Shandong.We define three management and protection modes of small-scale irrigation systems,namely the personal management and protection mode,village collective management and protection mode and the water users' associations management and protection mode,according to the ownership of responsibility in terms of possession,management and protection for small-scale irrigation systems.We construct a social network indicator system,and subdivide the social network variables into two dimensions,the network of relatives and friends and the general network,and use factor analysis to measure social network variables and indices of their subdivided dimensions.Based on the above methodology,the ordered Probit model is used to explore the impact of different management and protection modes,social network and its subdivided dimensions on the effects of management and protection of small-scale irrigation systems,and the robustness of the model results is tested.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Compared with the individual management and protection mode and the village collective management and protection mode,the sample farmers under the water association management and protection mode had the highest degree of satisfaction with supply of small-scale irrigation systems and the highest degree of satisfaction with management and protection(3.52 and 3.35),and conditions for the small-scale irrigation systems were the best(4.35).(2)From the regression results of the model,the influence coefficients of the management and protection modes and social network on the effects of management and protection are all significant at the 1% level.In other words,the management and protection mode and social network have positively promoted the improvement of the effects of management and protection of small-scale irrigation systems;(3)After dividing the social network variable into the network of friends and relatives and the general network,we discover that the general network has a positive promotion effect on the improvement of effects of management and protection,whilst the relatives and friends network has a negative influence on effects of management and protection,but the effects of the latter are statistically non-significant;(4)After the introduction of cross-term of social network subdivisions and the management and protection model,there is a substitution effect between general network and management and protection mode.The improvement of the general network level can weaken the influence of the management and protection mode on the effects of management and protection,or the optimization of the management and protection mode can weaken the influence of the general network level on the effects of management and protection;(5)In addition,the education level of rural householders has a significant positive impact on the effects of management and protection,the assessment of water prices by rural households and household irrigated area have significant negative impacts on the effects of management and protection,and there is a significant positive impact on the degree of clarity of power and responsibility and the government's size of investment.