Book Chapters

The main book contains articles based on “Copenhagen Consensus 2004.”

Paper for the Ministerial Roundtable Dialogue on Water Sector Challenges, Policies and Institutional Development in Asia, United Nations Conference Center, Bangkok, United Nations Conference Center, Bangkok, 22-23 May 2002

This paper presents examples of the close interactions, intended or unintended, between the various uses and users of irrigation water. The main focus is on the close link between water used for crop production in irrigated agriculture and water used by humans for drinking and other domestic purposes, a link that has largely been ignored by policy makers, governments, donors, international organizations, and the research community. In addition, a number of reasons are given as to why, from a public health point of view, an exclusive focus on water quality issues is a mistake and why more attention needs to be paid to the availability of sufficient quantities of water for domestic use than at present. The main argument that will be advanced is that significant health opportunities are missed due to the sectoral thinking of professionals and institutions involved in managing water. Several issues are expected to become very important in the twenty-first century and reflect the close linkages between water for food and water for people. These include the overexploitation of groundwater resources for irrigation, newly emerging groundwater quality problems, and increased recycling of water.

Published in “Tropical Medicine and International Health, Vol.6, No.1, pp.46-54, January 2001.” The complete article is available on the CD-ROM version of this Annual Report.

Published in Waste composting for urban and peri-urban agriculture: Closing the rural-urban nutrient cycle in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2001. The complete article is available on the CD-ROM version of this Annual Report.

Working paper 1 of the Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment, 2001. The complete article is available on the CD-ROM version of this Annual Report or at www.iwmi.org/dialogue

This research assesses the widespread transfer of government-run smallholder irrigation schemes in Africa to the management of organized groups of farmers in the light of decades of experience by various countries . The comparative study of the Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) suggests that it can work if certain preconditions are met. This research finds that IMT is unlikely to work for African smallholders. Here, the institutional alternatives most likely to succeed are those that address the whole complex set of constraints that African smallholders face.

Earlier published in 1998 : Water Nepal, 6(1):117-143

Frequently there is a gap between national guidelines for irrigation operations and field practices. National guidelines are often too general and imprecise for application to site specific conditions. Analysis of current national level recommendations in Sri Lanka supports these observations. A methodology is proposed to close this gap based on the analysis of the main characteristics affecting system operations. A generic typology for canal operation is proposed and applied for the operation of Major/Medium irrigation systems in Sri Lanka. The analysis shows that the schemes are homogeneous in terms of apos;Waterapos; characteristics. Systems are also homogeneous in their service objectives as described by the apos;Consumerapos; characteristics of the typology. Considering the physical operational characteristics apos;System amp; Structuresapos;, Sri Lankan systems are differentiated by the presence or absence of internal storage with respect to the apos;Storageapos; criterion. The maximum partitioning of schemes is found at the apos;Networksapos; level, where source of supply, Return-flows, canal topography, and Runoff criteria enable identification of characteristics with operational significance. A survey of 64 irrigation systems in Sri Lanka led to their classification into four main types. Irrigation systems can be divided using the same criteria as in the typology, in order to identify homogeneous subsystems for operation. An application of the subsystem approach is given for one particular project, and various considerations on strategies on how to improve the performance has been investigated. Improving normal operations produces limited results in terms of increasing the water management efficiency. Inversely volume controlled techniques aiming at, to properly manage positive fluctuations of flows present a high potential of improvements.

Paper presented at the apos;98 World Water Day Symposium, Seoul, Korea, 20 March 1998