PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF AYSERAWM MEDIUM SCALE IRRIGATION SCHEME AND PERCEPTION OF FARMERS IN MOJANA WEDERA WOREDA, AMHARA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Performance evaluation of irrigation schemes plays an important role to identify the gaps and applying essential measures for improvement. This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of Ayserwm medium scale irrigation scheme and farmers perceptionin Mojana Wedera Woreda, Amhara Regional State of Ethiopia using internal and external indictors. To achieve the objectives, primary data were collected throughfiled observation, determination ofsoil moisturebefore and after irrigation, discharge measurements, soil physical properties and household survey, whereas secondary data were collected from different sources. CROPWAT 8.0 model was used to calculate crop water requirement and irrigation scheduling and SPSS version 26 was used to analysis the collected data from household surveys. The selected internal indicators conveyance efficiency, application efficiency, deep percolation ratio, storage efficiency, distribution uniformity and the external indicators agricultural, water use and physical performance indicators. The result of conveyance efficiency, application efficiency, deep percolation ratio, storage efficiency and distribution uniformity were 62.36%, 58.16%, 41.84%, 63.18%, and 86.45%, respectively. Which leads to an overall scheme efficiency of 36.27%. From the analysis of external indicators, the value of output per irrigated area, output per command area, output per unit water deliver and output per unit water consumed were 379,643.5birr/ha, 457,538.2birr/ha, 121birr/m3 and 96birr/m3 , respectively. The result of water use indicators, which is relative water supply and relative irrigation supply, value were becomes 0.79 and 0.88 respectively. The result of irrigation ratio and sustainability of irrigated area were 1.2 and 2.9, respectively. From the total beneficiary farmers 80 beneficiaries were selected by using random sampling technique. During the assessment of farmer’s perception about the irrigation scheme performance, the respondents reported that the major problems that make the performance of the scheme to be poor were overflow of irrigation water on the canal, water theft, maintenance problem, and water shortage and water utilization conflict. Based on the result of this study the performance efficiency of the scheme is poor; it requires applying necessary measures to achieve good performance of the scheme