Role of Water User Group on Irrigated Water Management: A Case Study of Chomthong Irrigation Project, Vientiane, Laos PDR

Abstract

This research aimed to study in the Chomthong Project, Vientiane: 1) the state of the socio-economic and water resource with regard to users of irrigated water; 2) the role and factors of water users that affected the management of irrigation water users; and 3) suggestions to develop the role of irrigated water. The population consisted of 161 irrigation water users in the Chomthong Project. A questionnaire was applied as a tool to collect data which were then processed by a computer program. Analytical statistics that were used in this research were percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, t-test, F-test and Scheffe’s paired-test with the statistical level of significance set at 0.05.

The results of the study showed that most of the respondents were male, aged between 40 and 49 years, who had completed secondary education and were the head of the family with 5-6 family members. Their social status was a member of community and they had lived in the community since they were born but there was a tendency to move out of the community in order to cover their housing expenses. Most of them owned less than 1 hectare of land, with agriculture as the main career and plantations as a minor career and the average family income was between 5,000 and 6,000 baht per month or more than 16,000 baht per year. The role of the water user on water irrigation management was considered to be overall at the moderate level. Other aspects rated from the highest to lowest level were: maintenance, support from an irrigation officer, irrigation water management and administration among water users.

From the hypothesis testing, it was found that the factors that affected irrigated water management by the water users in the Chomthong Project, Vientiane were: the main career, the family’s income per year, participation in water use planning, water use planning, water use planning at agricultural area meetings, sufficiency of water for the agricultural area, participation in water distribution planning, using water cycle setting and the condition of ditches and irrigation constructions in the agricultural area.

Keywords: role of water user, irrigated water, management, Vientiane, Laos.