IWMI East Africa

Project Title: Raising Irrigation Productivity and Releasing Water for Intersectoral Needs (RIPARWIN)       

IWMI Theme: Basin Water Management - understanding water productivity     

Project Duration: 

2002-2006

Geographical Focus: 

Tanzania

The RIPARWIN project investigated competition for water in the upper part of the Great Ruaha River. It is tested the theory that improving irrigation efficiency and productivity in upstream areas would “free up” water for downstream needs.

For more detail see the RIPARWIN site:

http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Africa/files/RIPARWIN/05/Riparwin.htm

Partners 

• Overseas Development Group, University of East Anglia, UK ;

• Soil and Water Management Research Group, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania.

Donors

The project is funded by DFID + IWMI UNRES – T1

Status

Completed

Project Findings

The RIPARWIN project was a multi-disciplinary investigation of water allocation and management in a water stressed catchment in Tanzania. The research, conducted over five years, demonstrated that: i) under certain circumstances, improving local irrigation efficiency is important because, by reducing non-beneficial losses, water can be liberated for other uses; ii) care is needed in the development of irrigation infrastructure intended to increase catchment level water productivity since, if inappropriately designed and managed, it can have the opposite effect; iii) economic efficiency is a necessary, but not sufficient, criteria for determining water allocation; iv) in situations where withdrawals are vital for livelihoods and poverty alleviation, it is not reasonable to plan to fully implement environmental flows and it may be necessary to manage trade-offs between different ecosystems; v) although care is necessary not to perpetuate past inequities, the effectiveness of contemporary approaches to water management may be improved if built on traditional arrangements which tend to be better suited to the livelihood strategies and social norms of local people; and vi) different types of decision support systems that improve understanding of system dynamics and facilitate social learning and dialogue can contribute to better water resource management. At a time when irrigation is being strongly promoted as a significant contributor to attaining the Millennium Development Goals, the findings are relevant to catchments in developing countries where there is competition for water and irrigation is one of the main uses.