Hypothesis and Objectives 1 Hypothesis

For irrigation schemes under rotational water supply:

1. The different performance measures of irrigation water management in the irrigation scheme (productivity, equity, adequacy, reliability, flexibility, sustainability and efficiency) conflict with each other.

2. The relative importance of different performance measures varies between locations within the irrigation scheme i.e. head, middle and tail reach.

3. The optimum allocation policies ( i.e. the model allocates land and water resources optimally to different crops grown on different soils in different allocation units, with the help of irrigation programmes obtained for different Crop-Soil-Region) for different performance measures can be obtained by evaluating different irrigation strategies (i.e. the existing irrigation schedule specified for the particular Crop-Soil-Region (CSR) unit is the irrigation strategy for that CSR unit).

4. It is possible to obtain the suitable policy by identifying the tradeoff amongst different performance measures.

1.4.2 Objectives

1. To study the relative importance of performance measures to farmers (water users) in different locations in an irrigation scheme (Mula Irrigation Scheme in Maharashtra, India).

2. To study the performance of irrigation water management in irrigation schemes in terms of different performance measures (productivity, equity, adequacy, reliability, flexibility, sustainability and efficiency).

3. To provide the guidelines for improving the performance of irrigation water management in irrigation schemes.

4. To test a technique for obtaining the suitable optimal policy based on the relative preferences of the farmers to different performance measures in allocation process. As described in Chapter 3, Mula Irrigation Scheme was chosen as the case study for investigation.

10 1.5 Structure of this thesis

The Chapter - 2 Review of literature provides brief review on studies done in the past on performance assessment of different irrigation schemes by several researchers. Firstly the different performance measures used by different research scientists are reviewed followed by their application in performance assessment of different irrigation schemes. Further the different models developed (Area and Water Allocation Model (AWAM), Management- Ooriented Model (MODERATO), An inter-seasonal agricultural water allocation system (SAWAS), Scheme irrigation management information system (SIMIS), Soil-Water-Atmosphere- Plant (SWAP), Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) etc.) and their approaches (stochastic dynamic programming, linear programming, multi- criteria decision making, etc.) for Performance Assessment are discussed. After that different studies on the use of multi criteria decision making (MCDM) and analytical hierarchical process (AHP) for final performance of irrigation schemes are reviewed.

In the Chapter - 3 Methodology the methodologies used and tested for knowing the relative importance of performance measures to different stakeholders (water users) and the technique for obtaining the suitable optimal policy by including the tradeoff amongst different performance measures and stakeholders in allocation process are described. The chapter sequentially describes the selection of irrigation schemes and data collection. Further it explains the steps used for assessment of the performance of irrigation water management, analysis of the performance results, finding out the relative preference to different performance measures by different stakeholders (water users), knowing the different performance measures and final performance in response to different irrigation strategies and the tradeoff analysis of the performance measures.

The Chapter - 4 Results and discussion- AHP analysis explains the use of Analytical hierarchical process to obtain the preference and intensity of preference of one performance measures compared to another performance measures from different stakeholders. This incorporates how the questionnaire is designed, how the responses of different stakeholders to the questionnaire are obtained and how the responses to obtain the weights to different performance measures are analysed.

The Chapter - 5 Result and discussion (Based on AWAM Model) (II), the performance measures obtained with the help of AWAM model are presented and discussed. The results with respect to the values of the performance measures obtained and importance given by different

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stakeholders were used to obtain the suitable optimum policy. The response of different criteria such as soil, irrigation interval, irrigation strategy, irrigation depth, crops to water use and actual yield are analysed. Further the trade-off analysis is performed.

Chapter - 6 Results and Discussion (Final Performance of the Mula Irrigation Scheme) (III) enumerates the performance results in terms of productivity, equity, adequacy and excess were obtained for different irrigation intervals, irrigation strategies and cropping distributions The Chapter - 7 Conclusion summarises the entire research work done and concludes the output of this study.

Further in Chapter - 8 Bibliography enumerates the detail list of the information sources referred and used in this research study.

The performance measures along with their different attributes suggested by different researchers are tabulated and presented in Appendix-A. The details of different performance measures used by researches/managers are tabulated and presented in Appendix-A1. Appendix-A2 contains the values of different performance measures estimated for different irrigation schemes. Further the Questionnaire for using AHP to assign weights to different performance measures and their attributes is given in the Appendix-C. Appendix-B contains the data of Mula right bank canal (MRBC) network. Appendix-B1 contains Schematic layout of outlets, minors, distributaries and Branch canals in Mula Right Bank Canal (MRBC) at Level-1 and Appendix-B2 contains Schematic layout of Mula Right Bank Canal (MRBC) network showing the locations where groups of farmers were interviewed to know their preferences of performance measures for AHP analysis. Appendix-C contains the questionnaire and Appendix-C1 contains an example of relative preference of different performance measures of irrigation scheme using AHP. Appendix-D contains Final Performance Index (FPI) values for Head, Middle and Tail Reaches for all irrigation strategies considered in the study. Appendix-D1 contains the crop-area allocation under different irrigation strategies for the Mula Right Bank Canal scheme. Appendix-D2 and Appendix-D3 contain the Final Performance Index Values for different irrigation strategies using mean weights to performance measures.

Appendix -D4 (1 to 4) contains Final Performance Index Values for different irrigation strategies using equal weights and different combinations of weights to different performance parameters.

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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE