Socio-economic impact of use of water resources in farming systems: A case of Phayao Province, Northern Thailand

Publikations-Art

Kongressbeitrag

Autoren

Sattarasart, A.

Erscheinungsjahr

1999

Veröffentlicht in

Proceedings of The International Symposium of AFSRE

Herausgeber

Doppler, W. und Koutsouris, A.

Verlag

Margraf Verlag , Weikersheim

ISBN / ISSN / eISSN

3-8236-1320-0

Seite (von - bis)

182-194

Tagungsname

Third European Symposium on Rural and Farming Sytems Analyses: Environmental Perspectives

Tagungsort

Hohenheim

Tagungsdatum

25.-27.3.1998

Water resources are becoming increasingly scarce everywhere. Water should, therefore, be used for productive activities in an economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially equitable manner. This study aims at determining the sustainability (defined broadly as the ability of a system to maintain a certain well defined level of performance or output overtime) of agricultural development under different irrigated systems in the upper part of Mae Ing river basin, Phayao Province, Northern Thailand. In this paper, the elements of sustainable agricultural development are a) increasing productivity in a stable manner b) economic efficiency and c) equitability in sharing the benefits of agricultural production. The results indicate that irrigation increases productivity in a stable manner. Irrigation improves rice productivity by 10 to 38 % in irrigated systems compared to non-irrigated system. Rice production in irrigated systems is more profitable than in non-irrigated system. The gross margin of the production resources are attributed to different resources amongst the irrigated systems. The results of the study also indicate inefficient utilization of resources even though the marginal value of productivity is higher in irrigated than non-irrigated areas. As assessment of equity in water use indicates that there is unfair distribution pointing to unequal social/economic gains from irrigation. In conclusion, irrigation -the use of water resources- may improve agricultural development in a sustainable manner with better management of irrigation.