Browsing by Author "Lam, Wai Fung"

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Designing Effective Intervention for Irrigation Management: Cases from the Indrawati Watershed in Nepal
(2005) Lam, Wai Fung; Ostrom, Elinor; Shivakoti, Ganesh P.; Yoder, Robert
"Prior research and assistance experiences have suggested that technological fixes alone are not likely to improve irrigation performance. An intervention project stands a chance of success only if it could help develop robust local institutions to support the operation and maintenance of engineering infrastructure, and enhance social capital that has already existed in the local community. While the principle for designing successful intervention project seems to be straightforward, turning the principle into the design of intervention projects is not as simple as some might expect. In particular, how to keep the intervention effect last and sustained in the long run poses a significant challenge. "In 1985, the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS) of Nepal and the International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI) initiated an intervention project to assist 19 farmer-managed irrigation systems located in the Indrawati watershed in Nepal. The project was designed with a view to developing and testing methods for delivering assistance that could enhance farmers organizing ability for irrigation operation and maintenance at the same time as the irrigation infrastructure was improved. The project was innovative in a variety of ways: (1) the farmers could choose whether to be involved or not, (2) the project provided technical assistance but purposely did not provide full funding for engineering improvements and the farmers were expected to provide core labor and some materials, (3) the farmers examined the engineering plans and had to OK them before they were implemented, (4) participating farmers were expected to go through 'farmer-to-farmer' training offered by some of the more productive irrigation systems in Nepal, and (5) each farmer group was expected to write its own internal set of working rules that covered how future decisions would be made for the system. "The intervention was evaluated as being very successful soon after completion. In this paper, we will draw on several rounds of measurement for the systems involved in the project as so to assess and understand how the intervention has affected the operation and performance of the systems in a decade and a half after completion. By comparing the systems experiences of irrigation management, we will identify factors that help explain why there are differences in the long-term effects of this project, and discuss the implications of the experience for the design of intervention projects."
An Institutional Analysis of the Effects of Different Modes of Assistance on the Performance of Farmer- Managed Irrigation Systems in Nepal
(1998) Joshi, Neeraj N.; Ostrom, Elinor; Shivakoti, Ganesh P.; Lam, Wai Fung
"Thousands of irrigation systems in Nepal are managed by farmers themselves. Some of these farmer-managed irrigation systems (FMIS) have been in operation for centuries. It has long been accepted by policy makers and donors that FMIS in Nepal would benefit greatly from the availability of financial capital in order to construct permanent diversion structures to line key parts of a canal, and to undertake other capital intensive work that would improve the technical efficiency of the systems. Consequently, a number of different policy interventions have been undertaken in Nepal that are intended to enhance irrigation performance by improving physical infrastructures of FMIS. Despite the similar objectives of the intervening agencies, however, the consequences of the process of intervention have varied substantially. Given the increasing emphasis on the importance of interventions to improve irrigation performance, it is of great concern to assess why there is a difference in the performance of diverse types of interventions. "In this paper, we first briefly overview the history of irrigation development in Nepal. Then, we describe the institutions involved with the interventions in the irrigation sector development along with the processes of intervention. In the third section, we discuss the rationale of the study and some methodological procedures employed in the study. In the fourth section, we discuss the findings of the study focusing on the factors affecting the performance of irrigation systems in relation to interventions. In the final section, we address the issues that need action by intervening agencies in order to enhance irrigation performance."
Institutional Evolution and Social-Ecological Resilience: A Study of Irriagation Institutions in Taiwan
(2004) Lam, Wai Fung
"Taiwan’s irrigation management has faced a series of challenges in the past decades. As the country’s economy developed, agriculture has ceased to be a viable economic activity; the decline of agriculture has in turn adversely affected the incentives of farmers and the government to engage in irrigation management. Despite these challenges, the evolution of Taiwan’s irrigation systems in the past decades has been characterized by a high degree of resilience. Although irrigation management is unlike that in the good old days when farmers actively engaged in meticulous management and were willing to contribute significant manual and monetary resources, farmers’ organizing abilities and social capital accumulated over the years have largely retained, and continued to sustain a vibrant management order. The general picture is that while the sector as a whole has been in flux and gone through many changes, the vibrancy of the system remains. Drawing upon the literature of complexity studies and conceptualizing an irrigation system as a social-ecological system (SES), this paper seeks to explain and understand the institutional vibrancy and resilience of Taiwanese irrigation. The major argument is that the design of Taiwan’s irrigation institutions, as a result of years of trial and error, has been able to cope with the dynamics inherent in the SES. The institutions allow various actors and organizations at different levels to engage in continuous learning and adaptation. I shall examine how disturbances of different types have impact the structure and dynamics of the Taiwanese system, how individuals and organizations at different levels have responded to the disturbances, and how these responses have constituted the systemic response to the changing environment."
Institutional Nesting and Robustness of Self-Governance: The Adaptation of Irrigation Systems in Taiwan
(2016) Lam, Wai Fung; Chiu, Chung Yuan
"Rapid social-economic development has posed serious challenges to irrigation management in Taiwan. Drawing upon data collected through in-depth interviews with farmers and local irrigation officials and an appraisal survey, this study compares the processes of adaptation that have taken place in irrigation systems in four distinct ecological-institutional settings in the Chianan area of Taiwan. We have found that different modes of institutional nesting have affected farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies and the way self-governance has played out in the adaptation process, and that different adaptation strategies have brought about different impacts on system robustness and the sustainability of self-governance."