Increased water charges improve efficiency and equity in an irrigation system

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dc.creatorBell, A.R.
dc.creatorWard, Patrick S.
dc.creatorAli Shah, Azeem M.
dc.date2016
dc.date2017-01-25T05:36:58Z
dc.date2017-01-25T05:36:58Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-27T18:29:58Z
dc.descriptionConventional wisdom in many agricultural systems across the world is that farmers cannot, will not, or should not pay the full costs associated with surface water delivery. Across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, only a handful can claim complete recovery of operation, maintenance, and capital costs; across Central and South Asia, fees are lower still, with farmers in Nepal, India, and Kazakhstan paying fractions of a U.S. penny for a cubic meter of water. In Pakistan, fees amount to roughly USD 1-2 per acre per season. However, farmers in Pakistan spend orders of magnitude more for diesel fuel to pump groundwater each season, suggesting a latent willingness to spend for water that, under the right conditions, could potentially be directed toward water-use fees for surface water supply. Although overall performance could be expected to improve with greater cost recovery, asymmetric access to water in canal irrigation systems leaves the question open as to whether those benefits would be equitably shared among all farmers in the system. We develop an agent-based model (ABM) of a small irrigation command to examine efficiency and equity outcomes across a range of different cost structures for the maintenance of the system, levels of market development, and assessed water charges. We find that, robust to a range of different cost and structural conditions, increased water charges lead to gains in both efficiency and concomitant improvements in equity as investments in canal infrastructure and system maintenance improve the conveyance of water resources further down watercourses. This suggests that, under conditions in which (1) farmers are currently spending money to pump groundwater to compensate for a failing surface water system, and (2) there is the possibility that through initial investment to provide perceptibly better water supply, genuine win-win solutions can be attained through higher water-use fees to beneficiary farmers.
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/79386
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/157701
dc.languageen
dc.publisherResilience Alliance, Inc.
dc.rightsOpen Access
dc.sourceBell, A. R.; Ward, P. S.; Ali Shah, Azeem M. 2016. Increased water charges improve efficiency and equity in an irrigation system. Ecology and Society, 21(3):1-40. doi: 10.5751/ES-08642-210323
dc.subjectwater rates
dc.subjectirrigation systems
dc.subjectirrigation efficiency
dc.subjectirrigation canals
dc.subjectsurface water
dc.subjectwater delivery
dc.subjectwater use
dc.subjectwater supply
dc.subjectwater allocation
dc.subjectwatercourses
dc.subjectequity
dc.subjectfarmers
dc.subjectgroundwater
dc.subjectcost recovery
dc.subjectinvestment
dc.subjectland use
dc.subjectdecision making
dc.subjectefficiency
dc.subjectwater
dc.subjectfarm inputs
dc.subjectirrigation
dc.subjectagent-based models
dc.titleIncreased water charges improve efficiency and equity in an irrigation system
dc.typeJournal Article

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Instituto Internacional para el Manejo del Agua (IWMI)