Five-Country Regional Study

Five-Country Regional Study

Interim findings from IWMI’s research in the five basins were presented on Tuesday. The five basins, as it turned out, can be neatly ranked in terms of increasing water scarcity, as shown in figure 1, although this was not part of the original criteria for selecting research sites. Each basin has its own specific issues but there are many shared concerns.

Figure 1. Ranking of the five basins in terms of increasing of water scarcity.

The Fuyang basin in China experiences severe water shortage. Groundwater aquifers are being overdrawn. The paper presented by Jinxia Wang discussed the basin’s water management challenges, analyzed the evolution of management institutions, particularly for groundwater, and offered the researchers’ recommendations to establish water- administration bureaus to improve management of water distribution, and to make greater use of economic instruments in water management.

Irrigation in the Ombilin basin of West Sumatra, Indonesia has been affected by construction of a hydropower dam upstream that diverts water into another basin. The presentation by Helmi explained that waterwheels had been used to provide continuous irrigation to rice grown on highly porous soils. Even though the amount of water available

311 could still be adequate for the crop, river levels are now too low for many waterwheels to

operate properly. Coal-washing also generates large amounts of sediment. Basin-management institutions have not yet been established but they could be set up under new government policies.

The east Rapti basin in Nepal is still an open basin in terms of overall water supply and demand. The presenter, K. R. Adhikari explained that since almost all rain falls during 4 months, the basin still experiences seasonal shortages in many locations. Increased diversion for irrigation creates conflicts with dry-season flows for the Chitwan National Park downstream. Farmers are making increasing use of groundwater even though they have not responded to government programs for subsidized tube wells.

For the Philippines’ Upper Pampanga river basin, the presentation by Honorato Angeles stated although laws, regulations and policies exist to regulate water management they have not been fully implemented as yet. The researchers identified a need for better coordinating mechanisms in the basin, as well as better data for water management.

The Deduru Oya basin in Sri Lanka also experiences seasonal water scarcity in parts of the basin, as discussed in the presentation by K. Jinapala. Much of the middle and tail parts of the basin lack water in the dry season though some farmers pump directly from the river. Drinking water is a major problem since groundwater in two-thirds of the basin is not suitable for drinking. As yet, there are no institutions capable of coordinating water use in the basin in an integrated manner.

The brief synthesis of the five basin studies presented by Randolph Barker, emphasized the three major stages in basin development. Greater attention is needed to the historical development of institutions. All sites reported a need for reliable data, inadequate planning, absence of well-defined water rights and absence of mechanisms for integrating the use of surface water and groundwater. There were various site-specific problems, but all basins suffered from seasonal water shortages. The researchers have made recommendations for solving problems in basin management, and this workshop would formulate action plans concerning how institutional changes could respond to these problems.