Abstract
Efforts to increase the amount of irrigation schemes transferred to irrigation associations (IAs) in Turkey have been motivated by the poor performance โ in terms of cost recovery, equity, efficiency in operation and maintenance (O&M) and repairs โ of many large irrigation schemes by government agencies, namely the State Hydraulic Works (DSI). The objective of this study is to assess the irrigation system performance of transferred irrigation schemes in the DSI Fifth Regional Directorate service area mainly for the year 2003 with benchmarking indicators.
According to the findings of the study, relative water supply was recorded as 1.5โ8.4 respectively. The financial performance indicators including cost recovery ratio, maintenance expenditure to revenue ratio, operating cost per unit area, total cost per person employed on water delivery, revenue collection performance and service area per personnel were found to be 1.0โ10.6%, 0.7โ12.5%, US$6.5โ53.3โha^โ1^, US$636.0โ7045.9 per person, 78โ95%, 67โ13 000โha per person, respectively. As regards productive performance, output per unit command area, output per unit irrigated area, output per unit irrigation supply and output per unit water consumed were determined as US$325.2โ2745.1, US$1028.03โ5070.9โha^โ1^, US$0.2โ0.7โm^โ3^ and US$0.2โ2.6โm^โ3^ respectively. Water quality classes were found to be C~3~S~1~ in all schemes. The results of the case study show that following the transfer of irrigation schemes to the user organizations, significant improvements are recorded in irrigation water fee collection rates and financial cost reduction in the systems operated by the IAs. Mixed results are observed in terms of irrigation ratios. While there are improvements in two irrigation schemes, there are evident increases in the water supply ratio in six other irrigation schemes. Management, operation and maintenance (MOM) costs in general and the maintenance costs per se have increased compared to the collected water fees in the caseโstudy irrigation schemes. Copyright ยฉ 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.