Song Jing ,Zhu Yuchun
China Rural Water and Hydropower. 2018, (2):
159-163.
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Small-scale irrigation systems form an intrinsic part of modern day agriculture. Their
construction, management and maintenance are all closely connected to the wellbeing of
agricultural products. In recent years, the construction of small-scale irrigation systems has
attracted growing attention from policy makers, resulting in the steadily increasing investment
from the government in this sector. However, the problems of lack of management and
protection, and the unsound management mechanism have become increasingly prominent.
Consequently, small-scale irrigation systems were unable to play their designated role.
Enhancing the effects management and protection of small-scale irrigation systems requires
the close cooperation of government, farmers, village committees and water users’
associations. The government provides policy support and certain capital investment, at the
same time, individuals and grass-roots organizations such as farmers, village committees, and
water users’ associations need to be connected on a micro-level. During the connection
process, the modes of management and protection can play an external role in setting up
contractual and regulatory constraints. Social network is the “bridge” or “binder” in this
process of deep connection and serve as an informal system promoting farmers' participation
in management and protection to improve the overall effect. Therefore, mode of management
and social network are key considerations to take when exploring the effects of management
and protection of small-scale irrigation systems.
In this study, we seeks to analyze, on the basis of systematically outlining theories
relating to management and protection mechanisms, social network and the effect of
management and protection, the availability of small-scale irrigation systems and the status of
their management and protection utilizing the survey data of 1952 households in 100 villages
from five provinces, namely Shaanxi, Henan, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Shandong. We
define three management and protection modes of small-scale irrigation systems, namely the
personal management and protection mode, village collective management and protection
mode and the water users’ associations management and protection mode, according to the
ownership of responsibility in terms of possession, management and protection for
small-scale irrigation systems. We construct a social network indicator system, and subdivide
the social network variables into two dimensions, the network of relatives and friends and the
general network, and use factor analysis to measure social network variables and indices of
their subdivided dimensions. Based on the above methodology, the ordered Probit model is
used to explore the impact of different management and protection modes, social network and
its subdivided dimensions on the effects of management and protection of small-scale
irrigation systems, and the robustness of the model results is tested.
The main conclusions of this study are as follows: (1) Compared with the individual
management and protection mode and the village collective management and protection mode,
the sample farmers under the water association management and protection mode had the
highest degree of satisfaction with supply of small-scale irrigation systems and the highest
degree of satisfaction with management and protection(3.52 and 3.35), and conditions for the
small-scale irrigation systems were the best(4.35). (2) From the regression results of the
model, the influence coefficients of the management and protection modes and social network
on the effects of management and protection are all significant at the 1% level. In other words,
the management and protection mode and social network have positively promoted the
improvement of the effects of management and protection of small-scale irrigation systems;
(3) After dividing the social network variable into the network of friends and relatives and the
general network, we discover that the general network has a positive promotion effect on the
improvement of effects of management and protection, whilst the relatives and friends
network has a negative influence on effects of management and protection, but the effects of
the latter are statistically non-significant; (4) After the introduction of cross-term of social
network subdivisions and the management and protection model, there is a substitution effect
between general network and management and protection mode. The improvement of the
general network level can weaken the influence of the management and protection mode on
the effects of management and protection, or the optimization of the management and
protection mode can weaken the influence of the general network level on the effects of
management and protection; (5) In addition, the education level of rural householders has a
significant positive impact on the effects of management and protection, the assessment of
water prices by rural households and household irrigated area have significant negative
impacts on the effects of management and protection, and there is a significant positive
impact on the degree of clarity of power and responsibility and the government's size of
investment.