Community engagement for irrigation water management in Lao PDR

Abstract

Sustainable water resources management and community engagement are essential for water security. Referring to the above context, this study proposed to carry out an assessment of community engagement for irrigation water management in the Nam Haad Left Irrigation Project (NHLIP). The household and community level practices and the farmers’ levels of participation in irrigation water management of the NHLIP were carefully considered. From respondents’ responses, the results revealed that a husband-wife partnership plays a remarkable role in irrigation water management of the NHLIP for rice farming. The results also proved that most of the respondents engage with a high participation level in managing irrigation water of the NHLIP project as illustrated by a high score of 3.80 on the five-point Likert scale. To determine the significance of each activity on farmers’ levels of participation in irrigation water management of the NHLIP, a stepwise multiple regression analysis was employed and the standardized regression equation for determining overall participation levels can be presented as: Y = 0.538x1 + 0.831x8 + 0.534x14 + 0.607x18 + 7.572. Finally, the outcomes of this study indicated the willingness of participation in cooperating and supporting the activities related to the improvement and management of the NHLIP project.

Keywords

• community involvement
• irrigation management
• Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
• stepwise multiple regression
• Water User Group