Results

Multiple Water Use System (MUS) is a combination of facilities for both productive and domestic water use to meet the multiple needs of water in the community. Operation and maintenance of such facilities require a collective action by the users of irrigation facilities, water points, cattle trough or washing basins. One of the conditions to create an enabling environment for collective action is a common understanding of a particular issue between individuals. Differences in values and interests held between them often challenge the process of developing such an understanding. MUS, intending to cater for diverse needs, challenges the assumption of collective action by involving different users’ groups with varying levels of interests and needs in water use.

Gender relations, although being a critical factor in understanding the mechanism of collective action, are embedded in a society and often invisible. They can be overlooked in the process of organizing collective action. This paper examines how the gender relations affect the management of irrigation, water point and irrigation with multi-purpose facilities in Adidaero watershed in Tigray region, northern Ethiopia and analyzed by using the Gender Performance Indicator for Irrigation.

Site - Tigray: Water harvesting ponds and shallow wells

The main objectives for the construction of water harvesting ponds in Ethiopia are:

• To harvest water needed to meet household domestic needs (including livestock);
• To provide supplementary irrigation to long rain season cereal crops mainly during the drier months of September and October;
• To provide full irrigation to crops during the dry months of the year.

In Tigray only, the goal is to construct 500,000 ponds in the next years. The target for the year 2003 was to construct 40,000 ponds, 80% made with plastic liners and the rest with clay lining. About 30,600 were actually built. The target for the fiscal year 2004 was 160,000; 23,300 of which were built up to July 2004. The individual household pond is characterized by its catchment the pond itself and the command area; all managed at house hold level. The great advantage of this storage system is the relatively simple social operation and maintenance structure in relation to communal ponds.

Water is directly harvested by runoff or taken from a gully or stream with a diversion structure and stored in a pond to be used when required. The ponds have a square shape, usually 12x12m with internal slope of 1.5-2:1 and a capacity between 30 and 182 m3. Other sizes and shapes are being tested, e.g. 25x25 m with stepped sides. The ponds usually have complementary structures such as feeder canals, access stairs but often do not have a spillway and water lifting is done by bucket. Some of the ponds are fenced but most are not. The location of the pond near the house has been justified by the expectation that this will enable close management by family members and reduce the burden on the already busy daily schedule.

According to an EU Evaluation Report, there is a lot of potential in the region for shallow wells. The Tigray Regional Government is therefore strongly committed to promote the construction of shallow wells, the three-year action plan provide the construction of 8,200 shallow wells (3,000 in 2004). Until June 2004, 931 shallow wells have been dug. Decisions on the dimensions of the well are taken by the farmers. In the majority of cases the farmer digs the well himself with the support of his family. Depth of the well depends on the water table, on average 8 meters deep in the plateau and 15 meters in the highland. The well wall is lined with stones to waterproof it, but usually they are not covered and have no fence; this can be very dangerous and some incidents have already happened. The water is collected with a bucket on a rope; this method is cheap but at the same time dangerous and hard, especially if water has to be transported to the field. In order to improve irrigation techniques in one Woreda (administrative unit), 18 motor pumps are now available and farmers can rent them for 10 birr/day plus fuel price. This solution cannot be considered very practical as farmers consider the renting price too high and because there are not enough motor pumps available.

Several studies have been done on water harvesting ponds and shallow wells in Tigray, mainly by MSc and BSc students from Mekelle University, such as:

- Gebreegziabher Lemma Hagos (Dec05) The role of household ponds on the expansion of homegardens in Tigray, Ethiopia. MSc thesis Mekelle University

Multiple uses of water (MUS) have been traditionally practiced in Thailand for a long time, until the introduction of specific objectives of water use during the past 50 years. Single uses of water resources then became normalized according to the mandate of government sectors on water resource development. This was partly due to limited understanding and lack of information and knowledge about the specific purposes of the development projects of government agencies. Despite the severe reduction in the level of multiple uses in modern development programs, many leading villagers are still developing multiple-use practices at household and farm levels. They could achieve various objectives of integrated water resource management for a successful economy, improved livelihoods, and resource resilience.

Chapter 14 contains the conclusion. An abundance of lessons emerged from the MUS work in Nepal and Maharashtra, India. While the experiences in the two places were incredibly different, several common threads emerged, albeit with distinctive situational spins. Perhaps the simplest emergent theme was that MUS is not a new concept for rural villagers in either Nepal or Maharashtra. In both regions, communities have found ways to achieve their own integrated water resource management by combining various “projects,” either brought to them via external implementers (the government or NGOs) or accomplished via their own efforts.