Benchmarking of Irrigation Performance in Karataş and Karaçal Irrigation Associations

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the system performances of Karataş and Karaçal irrigation associations located in Burdur province. Karataş irrigation association was put into operation in 1982 and Karaçal irrigation association in 2015 with irrigation areas are 5476 and 4975 ha, respectively. The same public personnel were appointed to both irrigation associations as the Head of the Association in 2018, and as of 2019, both irrigation Associations were gathered under the management of Karataş irrigation association. In this study, the performances of Karataş irrigation, which has an old and predominantly open canal system, and Karaçal irrigation systems, which are relatively new and have a pressurized irrigation system, between the years 2015-2019 have been evaluated. In the performance evaluation, a set of indicators under two main headings as water use efficiency, and financial efficiency recommended by the International Technology and Research Program in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) was used. According to the results of the research, when the water use efficiency is examined, especially Annual relative irrigation supply (0.53-0.73 for Karataş; 0.47-0.96 for Karaçal) and irrigation ratio (20-72% for Karataş; 36% for Karaçal) 55) values were not at the desired levels. In terms of Financial Efficiency, cost recovery ratio (119-401% for Karataş; 144-311 for Karaçal) and revenue collection performance (78-442% for Karataş; 10-130 for Karaçal) were found to be high. Although this is a new irrigation, Karaçal irrigation shows that relatively high maintenance costs are incurred. Total operating maintenance and management (MOM) cost per unit area is US$ 9.60-14.98/ha for Karataş and as 1.32-22.92 US$/ha for Karaçal. These values showed that, in general, both irrigations have sufficient financial strength.