Assessing the performance of irrigation schemes with minimum data on water deliveries

Abstract

This paper highlights an approach to assessing the performance of the water delivery system from the perspective of farmers. The methodology uses the concept of fuzzy set theory to analyse the responses from farmers concerning their perception of the irrigation service provided. The paper takes the view that as part of performance assessment of schemes where data on water delivery are not available or their integrity cannot be guaranteed, it is possible to use farmers’ assessment to determine how effective the water delivery system is. The methodology was applied in a case study of Dawhenya irrigation scheme in Ghana. By decomposing the utility into reliability, timing and tractability and subsequently applying fuzzy set theory to the analysis of the linguistic responses of farmers, this study has enabled us to assess how well the water delivery system is performing from the point of view of the most important stakeholders – the farmers. The analysis indicated that the most important factor was reliability followed by tractability and timing in that order, while the farmers’ level of satisfaction with the factors in order of increasing satisfaction was: timing, reliability and tractability