MC Irrigation Improvement Projects in the Nile Delta Promises, challenges, surprises François Molle, Edwin Rap, Doaa Ezzat Al-Agha, Ahmed Ismail, Waleed Abou El Hassan and Mohammed Freeg 2015 Water and salt management in the Nile Delta: Report No. 4 2 Irrigation Improvement Projects in the Nile Delta: Promises, Challenges, Surprises François Molle, Edwin Rap, Doaa Ezzat Al-Agha, Ahmed Ismail, Waleed Abou El Hassan and Mohammed Freeg November 2015 3 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Context of the study ................................................................................................................ 9 1.2 Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 11 2 Irrigation Improvementsʼ design and promises ............................................................................... 15 2.1 The IIP concept ...................................................................................................................... 15 2.2 Expected benefits .................................................................................................................. 17 2.3 Performance assessed in earlier studies ............................................................................... 17 2.3.1 Introduction of continuous flow operations ............................................................................. 17 2.3.2 Changes in water abstraction .................................................................................................... 18 2.3.3 Changes in yields and other economic parameters .................................................................. 19 2.4 Implementation problems identified in earlier studies ........................................................ 19 2.4.1 Overall project support ............................................................................................................. 19 2.4.2 Cost Escalation ........................................................................................................................... 20 2.4.3 Construction quality .................................................................................................................. 20 2.4.4 Maintenance and sustainability ................................................................................................ 20 2.5 The next step: the IIIMP ........................................................................................................ 20 2.6 On-farm improvements ......................................................................................................... 22 3 Survey observations on IIP/IIIMP .................................................................................................... 24 3.1 Macro-level infrastructure and continuous flow .................................................................. 24 3.2 Actual use of the pumps and farmersʼ strategies ................................................................. 26 3.2.1 Technological packages in disuse .............................................................................................. 26 3.2.2 Working as planned ................................................................................................................... 37 3.2.3 Changing or adding motors/pumps ........................................................................................... 37 3.2.4 Fragmentation ........................................................................................................................... 40 3.2.5 Parallel use of PS & IPs .............................................................................................................. 42 3.2.6 Injecting additional water into the distribution network .......................................................... 44 3.2.7 Other ways of increasing supply ............................................................................................... 46 3.2.8 Adaptation to, and of, the technological package .................................................................... 48 3.2.9 On-going project and implementation problems in IIIMP ........................................................ 49 4 WUAs and collective action ............................................................................................................ 52 4.1 Building WUAs and improving infrastructure ....................................................................... 52 4.1.1 WUAs around collective pumps ................................................................................................ 52 4.1.2 Branch Canal WUAs and IIIMP................................................................................................... 53 4.1.3 Marwa level ............................................................................................................................... 53 4.2 WUA formation and construction of collective pumps ......................................................... 54 4.2.1 The parallel process of WUA formation and construction of pump stations ........................... 54 4.2.2 Project implementation and the formation of WUAs ............................................................... 57 4.3 Water distribution at the pump station level ........................................................................ 62 4.4 Water distribution at the mesqa/valve level ........................................................................ 66 4.5 Management of hydrants for piped marwas ........................................................................ 69 4.6 Maintenance needs ............................................................................................................... 70 5 4.7 Financial administration ........................................................................................................ 72 4.8 Conflict resolution ................................................................................................................. 73 5 Effect of interventions .................................................................................................................... 76 5.1 Impacts on land and water productivity ............................................................................... 76 5.2 Impacts on equity .................................................................................................................. 77 5.3 Impacts on labor requirements ............................................................................................. 79 5.4 Reduction in the use of drainage water ................................................................................ 80 5.5 Financial considerations ........................................................................................................ 80 5.6 Increase in the land area cultivated ...................................................................................... 85 5.7 With/without marwa improvement ...................................................................................... 87 5.7.1 Expected and realized benefits ................................................................................................. 87 5.7.2 Observations on implementation and problems faced............................................................. 88 6 Unpacking causalities and acceptability of the project .................................................................... 91 6.1 Analysis of trajectories .......................................................................................................... 91 6.2 Acceptability of the project ................................................................................................... 92 6.3 Pathways to improved implementation .............................................................................. 100 7 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 108 8 References ................................................................................................................................... 113 9 Water and Salt Management in the Nile delta............................................................................... 117 Reports by IWMI/WMRI .................................................................................................................. 117 6 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1. The 49 surveyed Pump Stations distributed over Meet Yazid ............................................... 12 Figure 2. Distribution of the sample according to the date of construction of the PS ......................... 13 Figure 3. Distribution of the sample according to the size of the command area (fed) ....................... 13 Figure 4. Different types of configurations for collective pumps.......................................................... 16 Figure 5. Major development project in the MYC command area (Source: World Bank 2005). .......... 23 Figure 6. Branch canal hardware to establish continuous flow ............................................................ 25 Figure 7. Spatial distribution of stolen pumps (yellow) and abandoned PS (red)................................. 29 Figure 8. Spatial distribution of PS stolen 2 or 3 times, with villages ................................................... 30 Figure 9. Pump station with a reinforced concrete protection ............................................................. 31 Figure 10. The theft of IIP/IIIMP infrastructure and solutions .............................................................. 32 Figure 11. Unused pumps (left), individual pumps using the pit (right) (Ariamon) .............................. 34 Figure 12. Valves and distribution pipes along the branch canals ........................................................ 34 Figure 13. Deep piped-systems from intake point near canal, individual pits, to outlet gate at drain 35 Figure 14. Local production of big pipes for mesqas ............................................................................ 36 Figure 15. PS with at least one electric pump ....................................................................................... 38 Figure 16. Changing or adding pumps/engines ..................................................................................... 40 Figure 17. Supplementary use of IPs ..................................................................................................... 43 Figure 18. Farmers pumping drainage water (at different levels) ........................................................ 44 Figure 19. Farmers pumping groundwater ........................................................................................... 44 Figure 20. Connection of IPs to the distribution network ..................................................................... 45 Figure 21. Ways to increase supply ....................................................................................................... 47 Figure 22. Adaptation of IIP technology ................................................................................................ 49 Figure 23. Consequences of delayed provision of electricity in IIIMP pumps....................................... 51 Figure 24. Curve depicting the relation between collective action and water scarcity (Uphoff et al., 1990) ...................................................................................................................................................... 62 Figure 25. Hour in which pumping operations start ............................................................................. 66 Figure 26. Distribution of pump operation durations (B6b) ................................................................. 66 Figure 27. Layout of PS B4 in W 10 area................................................................................................ 67 Figure 28. Example of maintenance needs in IIIMP stations ................................................................ 71 7 Figure 29. Problems of leakage with alfalfa valves ............................................................................... 71 Figure 30. Reduction of the pumping time per feddan, after tatweer ................................................. 79 Figure 31. Occurrence of pumping from the drainage system (survey of IPs, W10 excluded) ............. 81 Figure 32. Distribution of the values of the initial payment by farmers (for the investment in pumps) ............................................................................................................................................................... 83 Figure 33. Making use of the area originally occupied by mesqa and marwas .................................... 86 Figure 34. Seepage from buried marwa and mesqa pipes creating water logging ............................... 90 Figure 35. Categories of historical trajectories of IIP pump stations .................................................... 93 Figure 36. The supply-demand (im)balance in IIP stations ................................................................... 94 Figure 37. Balance between costs and benefits as perceived by farmers ............................................ 94 Figure 38. Cost-benefit balances in contrasting situations ................................................................... 96 Figure 39. IIIMP pump stations in Halafy canal command area ............................................................ 99 Figure 40. Example of unfinished work harming farmers ................................................................... 103 Figure 41. On-demand IIIMP special project ....................................................................................... 104 Figure 42. Locally made marwa improvements .................................................................................. 106 tertiary canal 8 1 Introduction 1.1 Context of the study In the world of irrigation the Nile Delta sticks out as a remarkable case because of its size (over 2,000,000 irrigated hectares) and the complexity of its distribution network. This network is comprised of 20,000 kilometers of canals of different dimensions, and is paralleled by an equally ramified drainage network. The structure of the distribution network has been expanded and considerably adapted and modified during the long history of agriculture in the Delta. As a result there is considerable connectivity between waterways at all levels, including canals and drains, let alone the numerous pump stations that supplement some canals with the water from main/secondary drains, or maintain water levels in drains low enough for them to function as planned (see IWMI-WMRI report No. 1, 2013). The conventional structure of the distribution systems involve successive levels, from main feeders (rayah) to main (primary) canals, branch canals (secondary), mesqa (tertiary) and marwa (quaternary field ditches). But this structure is not always so straightforward, because branch canals may fork out and have subbranches; others may be quite small (serving for example 500 feddans), shorter than some mesqas, which may be several kilometers in length and serve over 1000 feddan). But the name also reflects the legal status of the canal: branch canals are public property, and there is a right of way to be respected along them, while mesqas are located on private land and owned and maintained by farmers. Figure 1. Management levels in Egyptian irrigation (delta) Mesqa with Mesqa individualpumps 5-60 ha < 100 farmers Branchcanal 400-3000 ha 1000-10,000 farmers < 15 villages Marwa Mesqa with IWM district collective pump 8000-25,000 ha 40,000-100,000 farmers ~12 branchcanals 30-100 villages Governorate 200,000-500,000 ha >1,000,000 farmers Principal IWM district >500 villages canal 9 The circulation of water across such a wide network is somewhat mind-boggling. Main channels, down to the inlet of the mesqas, are managed by the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources through several nested administrative units (the irrigation distribution service at the ministry level; the governorates; the inspectorate; and the district). Managers have to deal with the uncertainty of both supply (the inflow into their canal depends on upstream conditions) and demand (what are the farmers actually cultivating and how much water they are abstracting or willing to abstract). They also have to contend with physical infrastructures that are not stable: canals are subject to siltation, sliding of embankments, growth of weeds, waste disposal, etc. and need to be dredged and weeded once or twice a year. Their hydraulic characteristics are therefore changing. Three main interlinked conventional issues in an irrigation system are its overall efficiency (how much water has to be distributed at the head of key canals to meet given requirements), the equity of distribution (making sure that water is evenly distributed within these canals), and timing (water is eventually available at the right moment at the right place). Meeting these objectives is therefore predicated upon a sound understanding of how water is managed and distributed both upstream (the ministry) and downstream (individuals or groups of farmers) of the mesqa inlet, and of the interface/coordination between the two levels. In Egypt, water is traditionally distributed between branch canals according to a rotation system generally described as having two turns in summer and three in winter: this means, typically, that a canal will be 5 days 'on' and 5 days 'off' in summer, and 5 days 'on' and 10 days 'off' in winter. The number of days 'on' is normally calculated based on the capacity of the canal and its estimated aggregated water requirement. The central task, but also difficulty, of water management is to ensure the predictability of this rotation and also the adequacy of the discharge that is delivered during the 'on' period. Uncertainty in timing and availability in terms of quantity not only results in mismatch between supply and demand but also in risk-minimizing strategies on the part of the farmers. If water supply is uncertain it becomes logical to store it, and the only is reservoir available to farmers is the soil profile. Consequently farmers tend to over-irrigate when water is available to them, which results in higher losses in these farms and in depriving farmers located further downstream on the branch canal from their water. Unpredictable water supply, although partly mitigated by the possibility for some farmers to abstract water from the drains or the aquifer, results in sub-optimal irrigation of the crops and losses in yields and income and hinders farmers from adopting more valuable cash crops (which demand more cash investments that would be at risk). Pondering about these issues in the 1970s, irrigation specialists and managers have attempted to come up with different technological and institutional improvements. Numerous experiments were in particular conducted by the seven-year Egypt - Water Use and Management Project (EWUP, 1977- 84), an interdisciplinary research project implemented by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) and researchers from Colorado State University. Out of the recommendations of that project, two major and complementary items were picked up and tested, before maturing into a series of successive 'irrigation improvement projects':  A technological solution to the vexing issue of stabilizing supply into (secondary) branch canals: the use of 'distributors' at the head of the canal, that is, baffle regulators that allow managers to determine and fix the discharge to the Branch canal. This was later completed with 'downstream control regulation', that is, automatic gates that react to a drop of water level in the branch canal (due to farmersʼ abstraction) by opening and allowing more water in. The objective is to establish continuous flow in the canal, as opposed to a rotational system, while delivering the same amount of water on the whole. 10