Managing Salinization

One: Theories on the Provision and Supply of Goods and Services Through Political and Bureaucratic Systems.- 1. Economic theories of democracy and bureaucracy.- 2. Criticisms to Niskanen’s model of bureaucratic supply from an institutional perspective.- 3. The New Institutional Economics, or the Institutional Rational Choice approach.- 3.1 Transaction and information costs.- 3.2 Collective action.- 4. The nature of water as a resource, and the peculiarities of irrigation and drainage systems.- 4.1 The first interdependency: the joint use of the delivery infrastructure and the use of the resource.- 4.2 The second interdependency: the joint use of the drainage infrastructure, and externalities caused by agricultural effluents.- 4.3 The mediation of externalities in common-pool water resource systems under different property-rights regimes.- 5. A concept for analyzing high groundwater levels and salinization in large-scale public irrigation systems.- Two: Literature Review on Large-Scale Public and on Small-Scale Farmer-Owned and -Managed Irrigation Systems.- 1. Large-scale public irrigation schemes.- 1.1 Water allocation rules and operation activities.- 1.2 Maintenance versus new investments.- 1.3 Self-financing principles for irrigation services and their relation to performance.- 1.4 Economic means for achieving efficient water use and for controlling groundwater and salinization.- 2. Small-scale farmer-owned and -managed irrigation schemes.- 2.1 Common-property regimes by definition, and design principles for self-governing irrigation institutions.- 2.2 Collective action for the provision of common goods.- 2.3 Water user rights, water allocation rules, and operation activities.- 2.4 Maintenance decisions in irrigated common-property regimes.- 3. Improving the performance of public irrigation systems.- 3.1 Financially autonomous or semi-autonomous irrigation agencies.- 3.2 Participation of water-user organizations.- 4. Potentials and constraints for controlling high groundwater levels and salinization.- Three: The Implementation Process of the Lower Seyhan Irrigation Project, With Special Reference to Means of High Groundwater Level and Salinity Control.- 1. Natural conditions in the Lower Seyhan Plain.- 2 The state’s responsibility for the development of water resources.- 2.1 The General Directorate for State Hydraulic Works.- 2.2 The General Directorate for Soil and Water.- 3. The project planning and implementation process, and its evaluation with regard to high groundwater levels and salinity.- 3.1 High groundwater levels and salinity as reported in the basic planning documents.- 3.2 The implementation and evaluation of the engineering works.- 3.2.1 The stage I project and its shortcomings.- 3.2.2 Major changes within the implementation period of the stage I project.- 3.2.3 The stage II project and its shortcomings.- 3.2.4 The stage III project.- 3.2.5 The on-going rehabilitation project: drainage and on-farm development works in the stage 1, II and III project areas.- 3.2.6 The stage IV project in progress.- 4. The effects of the subprojects on the distribution of salt-affected areas and high groundwater levels in the project area.- 5. Conclusions.- Four: Contributions to High Groundwater Levels and Salinization Caused by the Operation and Maintenance of the Lower Seyhan Irrigation Project.- 1. The first public-farmer setting: joint operation and maintenance by the Regional Directorate for State Hydraulic Works and the Water User Groups.- 1.1 Areas responsibility of the DSI and the Water User Groups.- 1.2 The Regional Directorate for State Hydraulic Works.- 1.2.1 Staff and equipment.- 1.2.2 Financing public irrigation services.- 1.3 The Water User Groups.- 1.3.1 Mode of establishment.- 1.3.2 The Water User Groups’ establishment.- 1.3.3 Contributions to operation and maintenance.- 1.3.4 Financing the Water User Groups’ irrigation services.- 1.4 Performing operation and maintenance, and contributions to high groundwater ...

Salinization of soils is a major threat to irrigated agriculture and counteracts the targets of costly public infrastructure investments. In this study, salinization is regarded as the outcome of an institutional arrangement which impedes the effective implementation of well-known and well-established control measures be they technical, managerial or economic. In public irrigation systems neither the management units nor the farmers are offered any incentives towards the control of high groundwater levels and salinization if the management units are embedded in a highly centralized non-market institutional setting. The author answers the question under which conditions management units and irrigators are active in halting and reversing the process of salinization.