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Water Flume Meters for Water Users Associations
(since 2007)
BACKGROUND
In 2002 SIC ICWC in partnership with IWMI has established pilot WUAs in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan within the IWRM-Ferghana Valley Project funded by the SDC. The activities have been initiated simultaneously in two directions: using IWRM tools as a software (conducting workshops and trainings) and hardware (providing pilot WUAs with water measuring devices)
The secondary and tertiary canals were the subjects of field surveys within each planned pilot WUA in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to determine the actual need of WUA canals in outlet regulators and water measuring devices. According to the survey results, the project developed recommendations for equipping of the pilot WUA outlets with water measuring facilities.
The project recommended installing water measuring devices (accepted for operation by Agencies of Standards in all three countries) depending on geographical and hydraulic conditions of canals supplying water. These are thin-walled Thompson and Chipollety weirs and SANIIRI flume meters. The majority of installed water flow measurement devices were SANIIRI flumes - 80%; Chipollety and Thompson weirs averaged -10% and installations on existing fixed canals - 5% of the total number.
Upon construction of water measurement devices at pilot WUA canals workshops for WUA engineering staff (hydro technicians) were conducted to train them in use of water measurement devices. Furthermore, specialists of other WUAs from the project area have been trained in the field conditions to select adequate sites and types for construction of required water measurement devices and to follow all standard requirements for their construction. Consequently, each pilot WUA maintained log books to account for daily water discharge.
Construction of outlets with water measuring facilities at pilot WUAs facilitated introduction of a new methodology for daily water distribution. That enabled to distribute water in equitable manner between the WUA water users and to mitigate social tension through transparency of water use information. The above mentioned measures permitted to reduce water consumption at average by 15-20% in all three pilot WUAs in comparison to the previous period.
While the water measuring devices clearly showed their usefulness, it has not been in the purview of the IWRM project to equip other than the pilot WUAs with these devices. Given their usefulness and great demand from WUAs, this project wants to contribute to a larger scale installation of these highly demanded water measuring devices, beyond the pilot region.
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