scholarly journals Institutional analysis defining the crucial factors for scaling low-emissions rice production: Evidence from Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Trang Vu ◽  
Katherine Nelson ◽  
Syed Samsuzzaman ◽  
Saidur Rahman ◽  
Mamunur Rashid ◽  
...  

This article provides a comprehensive institutional analysis to better understand the key conditions and incentives relevant for the uptake of alternate wetting and drying (AWD) – a climate-smart irrigation practice in Bangladesh. Practicing AWD in rice production can reduce water consumption by 30% and mitigate methane emissions by 30-70% without yield penalty. Primary research was conducted in Rangpur, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, and Sherpur Divisions. The analysis depicts the dynamic among the stakeholders involved in outscaling AWD using the Net-Map tool, and demonstrates the influence of irrigation management systems in the selected catchment areas and the impacts of AWD in rice farming. Findings reveal that AWD-practicing farmers, pump owners, and the Upazila Irrigation Committee are the three most powerful influencers for outscaling AWD. The pre-paid irrigation system significantly improves water efficiency and cost-effectiveness when practising AWD. Additionally, AWD leads to a lower frequency of pumping resulting in reduced costs compared to the continuous-flooding practice. Finally, the results guide the formulation of recommendations to create favourable conditions for AWD outscaling, which contributes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and advancing sustainable rice production in Bangladesh.

2022 ◽  
pp. 266-287
Author(s):  
Maria de Fátima Lorena Oliveira ◽  
Sergio Oliveira ◽  
António Terrão Russo ◽  
kiril bahcevandziev ◽  
Ana Bela M. Lopes ◽  
...  

This chapter aims to analyze the rice production system at the Baixo Mondego Valley to understand the main concerns. Field research and field trials were carried out to analyze rice production, marketing systems, and different irrigation alternatives. An analysis on the worries was made, and a correlational attempt was done. The results show a production system oriented by agri-environmental policies. The problems related with rice irrigation are water scarcity, environmental impacts on water quality, agroecosystems, and methane emissions. To reduce water demand, the alternate wetting and drying flooding method, and the improvement of the precise land levelling were studied on the scope of MEDWATERICE Project. About 12-14% of water saving was observed, with impact on production lower than 3.5%, allowing period of 11-19 days of dry soil, expecting positive implications for greenhouse gas emissions. Innovation in the irrigation system may help to reduce some of the farmers' concerns and help to better adapt this crop to the new needs of agriculture in terms of environmental competitiveness.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Kristine Samoy-Pascual ◽  
Sudhir Yadav ◽  
Gio Evangelista ◽  
Mary Ann Burac ◽  
Marvelin Rafael ◽  
...  

Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) is a well-known low-cost water-saving and climate change adaptation and mitigation technique for irrigated rice. However, its adoption rate has been low despite the decade of dissemination in Asia, especially in the Philippines. Using cross-sectional farm-level survey data, this study empirically explored factors shaping AWD adoption in a gravity surface irrigation system. We used regression-based approaches to examine the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of AWD and its impact on yield. Results showed that the majority of the AWD adopters were farmers who practiced enforced rotational irrigation (RI) scheduling within their irrigators’ association (IA). With the current irrigation management system, the probability of AWD implementation increases when farmers do not interfere with the irrigation schedule (otherwise they opt to go with flooding). Interestingly, the awareness factor did not play a significant role in the farmers’ adoption due to the RI setup. However, the perception of water management as an effective weed control method was positively significant, suggesting that farmers are likely to adopt AWD if weeds are not a major issue in their field. Furthermore, the impact on grain yields did not differ with AWD. Thus, given the RI scheduling already in place within the IA, we recommend fine-tuning this setup following the recommended safe AWD at the IA scale.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (18) ◽  
pp. 6040
Author(s):  
Mushran Siddiqui ◽  
Farhana Akther ◽  
Gazi M. E. Rahman ◽  
Mohammad Mamun Elahi ◽  
Raqibul Mostafa ◽  
...  

Water, one of the most valuable resources, is underutilized in irrigated rice production. The yield of rice, a staple food across the world, is highly dependent on having proper irrigation systems. Alternate wetting and drying (AWD) is an effective irrigation method mainly used for irrigated rice production. However, unattended, manual, small-scale, and discrete implementations cannot achieve the maximum benefit of AWD. Automation of large-scale (over 1000 acres) implementation of AWD can be carried out using wide-area wireless sensor network (WSN). An automated AWD system requires three different WSNs: one for water level and environmental monitoring, one for monitoring of the irrigation system, and another for controlling the irrigation system. Integration of these three different WSNs requires proper dimensioning of the AWD edge elements (sensor and actuator nodes) to reduce the deployment cost and make it scalable. Besides field-level monitoring, the integration of external control parameters, such as real-time weather forecasts, plant physiological data, and input from farmers, can further enhance the performance of the automated AWD system. Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to interface the WSNs with external data sources. This research focuses on the dimensioning of the AWD system for the multilayer WSN integration and the required algorithms for the closed loop control of the irrigation system using IoT. Implementation of the AWD for 25,000 acres is shown as a possible use case. Plastic pipes are proposed as the means to transport and control proper distribution of water in the field, which significantly helps to reduce conveyance loss. This system utilizes 250 pumps, grouped into 10 clusters, to ensure equal water distribution amongst the users (field owners) in the wide area. The proposed automation algorithm handles the complexity of maintaining proper water pressure throughout the pipe network, scheduling the pump, and controlling the water outlets. Mathematical models are presented for proper dimensioning of the AWD. A low-power and long-range sensor node is developed due to the lack of cellular data coverage in rural areas, and its functionality is tested using an IoT platform for small-scale field trials.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 528-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff B. Million ◽  
T.H. Yeager

A goal of irrigation best management practices in container nurseries is to conserve water while maintaining optimal plant growth and quality. A web-based, container irrigation management program (CIRRIG) was developed to automatically provide daily irrigation run times for sprinkler-irrigated crops in container nurseries. The program estimates evapotranspiration rates based on weather uploaded from a weather station located on-site and plant production conditions monitored in each zone and adjusts irrigation run times based on irrigation application rate, the plant’s irrigation-capturing ability (for sprinkler irrigation), desired leaching fraction, and irrigation system uniformity. For this project we interfaced CIRRIG output with a programmable logic controller (PLC) to automatically irrigate a sprinkler-irrigated crop at a container nursery in Florida. Sweet viburnum (Viburnum odoratissimum) in 10-inch-diameter containers were grown by the nursery for 24 weeks in adjacent irrigation zones, one controlled automatically using CIRRIG and the other by the nursery’s traditional practice of manually turning on and off irrigation. Water use was monitored with flowmeters and plant growth by measuring plant size and shoot dry weight periodically throughout the trial. Plant growth was not different (P < 0.05) because of irrigation practice. CIRRIG reduced water use during the study period by 21% (42 vs. 53 inches) compared with the nursery’s irrigation practice. An assessment of the water-saving benefits of making daily adjustments to irrigation run times based on weather including rain indicated savings of 25% and 40% compared with biweekly adjustments with and without automatic rain cutoff, respectively. This trial demonstrated that CIRRIG coupled with an on-site weather station and a computer-controlled irrigation system can be used to manage irrigation while conserving water in a container nursery.


1993 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-228
Author(s):  
Zakir Hussain

The book; under review provides a valuable account of the issues and factors in managing the irrigation system, and presents a lucid and thorough discussion on the performance of the irrigation bureaucracies. It comprises two parts: the first outlines the factors affecting irrigation performance under a wide range of topics in the first five chapters. In Chapter One, the authors have attempted to assess the performance of the irrigation bureaucracies, conceptualise irrigation management issues, and build an empirical base for analysis while drawing upon the experience of ten country cases in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Second Chapter focuses on the variations in the management structures identified and the types of irrigation systems; and it defines the variables of the management structures. The activities and objectives of irrigation management are discussed in Chapter Three. The objectives include: greater production and productivity of irrigation projects; improved water distribution; reduction in conflicts; greater resource mobilisation and a sustained system performance. The authors also highlight the performance criterion in this chapter. They identify about six contextual factors which affect the objectives and the performance of irrigation, which are discussed in detail in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five, some organisational variables, which would lead to improvements in irrigation, are examined.


Author(s):  
Liu ◽  
Hu ◽  
Song ◽  
Chen ◽  
Zhu

Water eutrophication caused by agricultural production has become one of the most important factors that impede sustainable rural environmental governance in China. As a result, the Chinese central and local governments want to reduce the use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer and gain socioeconomical profit simultaneously by promoting crayfish and rice integrated system (CRIS) in the rural areas with abundant water resources. In this article, we investigated whether CRIS in Qianjiang, Hubei, the origin place of the system in China, contributes to fulfilling the governments’ expectations. We found that CRIS efficaciously cuts the fertilizer rate in rice production and boosts farmers’ incomes because crayfish has a demand for water quality and holds a large internal market requirement. However, higher profit encourages farmers to expand crayfish production and thus discourages the initiatives in rice production. The area of the ditch for crayfish production expands ceaselessly and exceeds the limit of regulation of CRIS. As a result, the CRIS in the areas has emerged as a practice of aquaculture but in farmland. This is a regulatory gap. The input–output analysis of CRIS by material balance method can also reveal that excessive feed for crayfish has become a new source of agricultural pollution. Beyond that, due to the changed irrigation system and increased water exchange frequency of CRIS, the pollution has transformed from passive distribution to active, which will increase the risk of water eutrophication on a large area.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
Chen Jing ◽  
Kan Shizuan ◽  
Tong Zhihui

AbstractThis paper, based on historical research on irrigation administration in the Dongping area and on-site investigations into its current state, explores the benefits and problems produced by two institutional changes. As a common pool resource situation, irrigation systems’ “provision” and “appropriation” are two separate issues; any institutional change must thus offer two different solutions. The study concludes that the participatory changes undertaken in the Dongping irrigation area failed, in the end, to resolve the problem of irrigation system sustainability. In particular, it proved difficult for collective action to take place around provision, which led to difficulties in operating the irrigation system.


Author(s):  
Upendra Gautam

Oriental philosophers have given top priority to food for orderly state affairs as well as personal wellbeing. In past, Nepal had a strong agricultural economy based on indigenous Farmer Managed Irrigation System (FMIS). State policy helped promote these systems. But contemporary Nepal opted for state control on irrigation water by building large scale public irrigation systems. In the last 43 years of planned development (1957-2002), the government has spent 70% of US$1.3 billion on these systems, covering 30% of the irrigated area in the country; the remaining 70% is with the FMIS. Despite the investment, these systems neither promoted themselves as an enterprise nor helped enhance agricultural productivity leading to social insecurity. This social insecurity is reflected in the country's increasing import of food, mass workforce exodus for employment abroad, and added socio-economic vulnerability due to climate change.Donor and government recommendations centered on (i) expansion of irrigated area, (ii) irrigation management transfer, and (iii) agriculture extension seem to have failed in Nepal. These failures asked for alternative institutional development solutions, whereas public irrigation systems are (i) localized to establish system's operational autonomy with ownership and governance, (ii) treated as a rich resource-base with water, land and labor, and (iii) recognized as cooperative enterprise of local stakeholders by law with authorities to enter into joint actions with relevant partners for promoting commercialization and environmental quality of irrigated agriculture.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hn.v11i1.7223 Hydro Nepal Special Issue: Conference Proceedings 2012 pp.95-99


Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Elshaikh ◽  
Shi-hong Yang ◽  
Xiyun Jiao ◽  
Mohammed Elbashier

This study aims to offer a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of policies and institutional arrangements on irrigation management performance. The case study, the Gezira Scheme, has witnessed a significant decrease in water management performance during recent decades. This situation led to several institutional changes in order to put the system on the right path. The main organizations involved in water management at the scheme are the Ministry of Irrigation & Water Resources (MOIWR), the Sudan Gezira Board (SGB), and the Water Users Associations (WUAs). Different combinations from these organizations were founded to manage the irrigation system. The evaluation of these organizations is based on the data of water supply and cultivated areas from 1970 to 2015. The measured data were compared with two methods: the empirical water order method (Indent) that considers the design criteria of the scheme, and the Crop Water Requirement (CWR) method. Results show that the MOIWR period was the most efficient era, with an average water surplus of 12% compared with the Indent value, while the most critical period (SGB & WUAs) occurred when the water supply increased by 80%. The other periods of the Irrigation Water Corporation (IWC), (SGB & MOIWR), and (WUAs & MOIWR) had witnessed an increase in water supply by 29%, 63%, and 67% respectively. Through these institutional changes, the percentage of excessive water supply jumped from 12% to 80%. Finally, the study provides general recommendations associated with institutional arrangements and policy adoption to improve irrigation system performance.


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