An alternative approach to sustainable water users' organization in national irrigation systems: The case of the Khlong Thadi Weir System, southern Thailand

Thai national irrigation systems, serving a large number of small paddy farmers, require water users' organization for effective and sustainable joint management; however, water users' organizations (WUOs) presently cover only 27% of the total irrigation area. This three-year action research investigated the difficulties in organizing water users in the Khlong Thadi Weir System in southern Thailand by immersion into the socio-economic conditions of Muslim farmers in farm turnout No. 4 of the 1L-4R-LMC canal and the conventional on-farm irrigation development there. We found the following: (1) subsistence farming and unstable tenancy discourage farmers from increasing their formal participation in irrigation management; (2) kinship is important but effective only in a limited space; (3) the conventional method of providing short ditches in a limited project timeframe creates a structural bias; (4) intrinsic internal water conflicts make the hydraulic relationship alone an inadequate basis for water users' organization; (5) alternatively, the social relationship between individual farmers and their community emerges as a promising scaffold for water users' organization; (6) the state irrigation agency should consider adopting a more vital role by supporting WUOs, tambon administration organizations and villages with needed incentives, technical information, and capacity building so that the WUOs are ultimately the decision makers. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.