INADEQUACY OF CURRENT WATER USE PLANNING AT THE LEVEL OF WATER USERS AND WUAS

This paper studies the main issues of water use planning at the level of water consumers and water user associations (WUA). The study carried out in Bulakbashi district of Andijan province of Uzbekistan, where the main source of irrigation water is the Southern Fergana Main Canal. The study followed two-stage procedure. During the first stage we compiled water use plans for the WUA and water consumers based on the applied methodology of water use planning. Then, at the second stage, we analyzed the results of the actual implementation of the farm water consumption plans and WUA water use plan, and the possibility of their operational adjustments. The results of this study showed, that because of lack of water distribution schedules and water accounting, there is a shortage of water in the tail ends of the system even when the water intake at the WUA level exceeds the planned water use. Small sizes of irrigation plots do not allow efficiently and timely rotate water between farmers and cause high water losses in the irrigation network. WСA water users located in the upper part of the canal receive water 2 or even 3 times more than the planned demand provided by the crop irrigation regime, while water consumers located in the end part of the canal, they suffer from water shortage. The uniformity of water distribution between the group of water users located in the end part of the WUA channel to the group of water users in the upper part of the channel ranges from 0.44 to 0.62. The irrigation areas of water consumers have a very low water usage rate from 0.3 to 0.5. As a result, irrigation water applications dates significantly differ from crop water requirements. Decade-based irrigation scheduling for small farming complicates timely implementation of farming practices and effective use of irrigation water.

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