Journal of Environmental Management 145 (2014) 162e169

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Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Integrated water resources management and water users' associations

in the arid region of northwest China: A case study of farmers'
perceptions
Xiao-Jun Hu a, 1, You-Cai Xiong a, 1, Yong-Jin Li a, b, Jian-Xin Wang d, *, Feng-Min Li a, *,
Hai-Yang Wang b, Lan-Lan Li c
a

State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agroecosystems, Institute of Arid Agroecology, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, PR China
Department of Sociology, School of Philosophy and Sociology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, PR China
School of Economics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, PR China
d
School of Computer Science and Technology, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, PR China
b
c

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 5 April 2011
Received in revised form
16 June 2014
Accepted 18 June 2014
Available online

Water scarcity is a critical policy issue in the arid regions of northwest China. The local government has
widely adopted integrated water resources management (IWRM), but lacks support from farmers and
farm communities. We undertook a case study in the Minqin oasis of northwest China to examine
farmers' responses to IWRM and understand why farmer water users' associations (WUAs) are not
functioning effectively at the community level. Results of quantitative and qualitative surveys of 392
farmers in 27 administrative villages showed that over 70% of farmers disapprove of the IWRM marketbased reforms. In particular, the failure of farmer WUAs can be attributed to overlapping organizational
structures between the WUAs and the villagers' committees; mismatches between the organizational
scale of the WUAs and practical irrigation management by the farmers themselves; marginalization of
rural women in water decision-making processes; and the inexibility of IWRM implementation. An
important policy implication from this study is that rebuilding farmer WUAs is key to overcoming the
difculties of IWRM. The current water governance structure, which is dominated by administrative
systems, must be thoroughly reviewed to break the vicious cycle of tension and distrust between farmers
and the government.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Farmer water users' associations
Integrated water resources management
Perception
Arid region of northwest China

1. Introduction
Drought and desertication threaten the sustainable livelihoods
of more than one billion people (UNCCD, 1994), most of whom are
agricultural producers in developing countries. In particular, the
projected intensication of water scarcity as a result of global
climate change will cause greater stresses in arid areas (MEA, 2005;
UNDP, 2006; Bates et al., 2008). With an increasing understanding
of the coupled social-ecological systems (Holling, 2001; Walker
et al., 2004; Folke et al., 2005; Reynolds et al., 2007; Liu et al.,
2007; Kotchen and Young, 2007), a signicant paradigm shift in
the management of water resources is being manifested by trends

* Corresponding authors. Tel./fax: 86 931 8912848.

E-mail addresses: 81665146@qq.com (J.-X. Wang), fmli@lzu.edu.cn (F.-M. Li).
1
Both are joint rst authors.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.06.018
0301-4797/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

towards both participatory management and adaptive governance

(Gleick, 2003; Pahl-Wostl, 2007; Huitema et al., 2009).
The arid region of northwest China, situated in the hinterland of
the Eurasian continent, occupies about 30% of China's total land
area (Zhao, 1985). Low precipitation and high evaporation make
this one of the world's most arid regions (Shi and Zhang, 1995). In
recent decades, this region has experienced serious water shortages, drought, and desertication due to population growth,
intensive agricultural activities, and poor water resources management (Zha and Gao, 1997; Feng and Cheng, 1998; Wang and
Cheng, 1999; Fan and Zhou, 2001; Yang et al., 2005; Zhou and
Yang, 2006; Bao and Fang, 2007; Wang et al., 2008). Most residents earn their livelihood through irrigated agriculture that relies
on meltwater from snow and glaciers. The projected increase in the
surface air temperature of northwest China is expected to result in a
27.2% decline in glacial area and severe drinking and irrigation
water shortages by 2050 (Qin, 2002; MOST et al., 2007).

X.-J. Hu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 145 (2014) 162e169

Facing an unprecedented water crisis, northwest China has been

designated as a pilot area for the development of water-saving
practices by the central government (NDRC et al., 2006). Because
over 80% of the local water resources are used for agricultural
production, a cost-effective option to mitigate water shortages is to
improve irrigation water management (Deng et al., 2006; Jiang,
2009). Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is
currently being implemented as the core of water-saving strategies.
As a management practice, IWRM emphasizes decentralizing water
management to the local level by increasing community participation in the decision making process (Savenije and Van der Zaag,
2008). To promote participatory irrigation management and the
full involvement of small-scale farmers, farmer water users' associations (WUAs) have become increasingly common in the arid
region of northwest China (Wang et al., 2010; Qiao et al., 2009).
WUAs were used as the organizational foundation for water allocation and were expected to play a critical role in promoting the
IWRM reform at the community level.
In this paper, we present empirical results of a survey of smallscale farmers regarding IWRM. This survey was part of a case study
in Minqin oasis, Shiyang River basin, northwest China. The objectives of this study were: (1) to measure the farmers' attitudes toward IWRM and their perception of WUAs; (2) to identify the
adaptation measures used to cope with IWRM; (3) to explore the
reasons why WUAs are not functioning effectively at the community level. On the basis of our ndings, we offer policy recommendations to promote the development of farmer WUAs.
2. The study area
The study was conducted in the Minqin oasis (total area
15,870 km2), which is located in the lower reaches of the Shiyang
River basin of northwest China (Fig. 1). This area is surrounded by
the Badain Jaran and Tengger deserts, China's third and the fourth
largest deserts, respectively. Minqin is a typical oasis, with a mean
annual precipitation of 112 mm and mean annual potential evaporation of 2582 mm (over the period of 1953e2006). Since the Han
Dynasty (circa 100 B.C.) (Xie et al., 2009), the Minqin oasis has been

163

an irrigation-dependent farming area. Today, the local agricultural

ecosystem provides livelihoods for over 300,000 people, 77% of
whom are small-scale farmers. The only surface water source for
irrigation is the Shiyang River, which originates in the Qilian
mountains.
The Minqin oasis became an articial oasis in 1958 when the
Hongya mountain reservoir, Asia's largest desert reservoir, was
constructed. Over the last 50 years, as water consumption
increased in the middle reaches of the Shiyang River, the surface
water discharged into the Minqin oasis gradually decreased,
shrinking from 5.14  108 m3 in 1956 to only 1.79  108 m3 in 2006.
Even as available surface water resources are becoming increasingly scarce, population growth has led to large-scale land reclamation (for agriculture) during the past 50 years, especially in the
oasis-desert ecotone. Groundwater has become the main source
for irrigation (Xiao et al., 2007); the number of active wells
increased from 27 in 1965 to 9519 in 2006. More than 85% of the
annual water consumed in the oasis is now supplied by groundwater extraction.
Over-exploitation of groundwater resources has led to severe
environmental degradation (Ma et al., 2005; Sun et al., 2005, 2006;
Zhang et al., 2005). Sandy desertication directly threatens the
sustainable livelihoods of small-scale farmers, and events such as
sandstorms are becoming more common, leading to socioeconomic consequences such as increasing numbers of ecological
refugees. Moreover, as the demand for water increases, the
competition for water resources is becoming more intense, leading
to more conicts among stakeholders and a decline in agricultural
benets. The Minqin oasis faces a dilemma: how to promote the
sustainable livelihoods of small-scale farmers, while maintaining
the resilience and sustainability of the socio-ecological system.
2.1. IWRM and WUAs in Minqin
The government has launched a series of measures to cope with
the challenge faced by Minqin. The Shiyang River Basin Restoration
Plan, approved by the State Council of China in 2007, includes
planned investments of RMB 4.75 billion (USD 695.6 million) from

Fig. 1. Case study area.

164

X.-J. Hu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 145 (2014) 162e169

2006 to 2020. The core goal of this plan is to establish a modern

irrigation water system that uses IWRM principles to allocate water
resources efciently and equitably throughout the basin. Under this
plan, specic measures taken in the Minqin oasis have included the
following: (1) allocating initial water rights to all farmers based
available water; (2) establishing farmer WUAs at the administrative
village level; (3) increasing surface water tariffs; (4) imposing a
groundwater resource levy and establishing a scalar pricing
mechanism; (5) facilitating water rights trading through marketbased instruments, and (6) developing water-saving agricultural
technologies (DWR and DPC of Gansu Province, 2007).
Beginning in 2007, WUAs were organized by the local government in every administrative village of Minqin. (In rural China, the
administrative village is a political unit that usually consists of
several natural villages, each of which is a single ecological unit.)
The objectives of the WUAs were to involve all small-scale farmers
in IRWM; ensure democratic decision-making, management, and
supervision in water-related affairs, and promote cooperation in
water management through self-organized community networks.
The WUAs were expected to maintain the systems of eld ditches,
allocate water rights to the farmers, help water administrative
departments impose water fees and groundwater resources levies,
publicize water-related laws and regulations, popularize watersaving agricultural technologies, and mediate water disputes and
conicts that might arise in the communities (MWR et al., 2005).
2.2. IWRM implementation process
Water resources allocation is at the core of the IWRM reform in
Minqin. The county government formulates and implements water
resources allocation planning on an annual basis (Fig. 2). Surface
water and groundwater volumes for irrigation use are quantied in
the annual plan based on the xed amount of available water.
Subsequently, water rights are assigned to the township governments where water resources management ofces are located.
These ofces reallocate water to WUAs in the administrative villages. Water management stations, established in different

irrigation districts, supervise and monitor the implementation

processes using automatic metering equipment (on wells) and
irrigation water licensing systems (e.g., water ticket management).
3. Methods
3.1. Data collection
This study was carried out from August 2008 to June 2009 using
a questionnaire and qualitative methods. To guide the development
of a formal questionnaire and Likert scales, we conducted a qualitative survey using semi-structured interviews with key informants
(village leaders, local government ofcials, and environmental nongovernmental organizations). We used a pilot study to uncover
possible misinterpretations of the questions and ambiguous responses. In addition, we gathered qualitative data through focus
group interviews and participant observations to help us better
understand the decision-making processes of small-scale farmers
with respect to IWRM. We conducted the participant observations
during the irrigation season in the Yongfeng administrative village
of the Huqu irrigation district.
We used a multi-stage, stratied, random sampling method to
select adults aged over 18 for the survey. We rst divided the 245
administrative villages of the Minqin oasis into six irrigation districts based on geographic location and irrigation-ditch distribution. We selected administrative villages in each irrigation district
by probability proportionate to size (PPS) sampling. Within each
selected administrative village, we selected households by systematic sampling and individuals within each household using the
last birthday method. The process resulted in a sample of 405
farmers from 27 administrative villages; the overall response rate
was 96.8% yielding a valid sample of 392. The demographic and
social characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 1.
We administered a closed-ended structured questionnaire
through face-to-face interviews with the 405 small-scale farmers.
We developed ve-point Likert scales to measure the farmers' attitudes toward IWRM in terms of their (1) willingness to adopt

Fig. 2. IWRM implementation.

X.-J. Hu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 145 (2014) 162e169

Table 1
Sample demographic and social characteristics.

Gender
Age

Education

Health

Migrant workers

Category

Total

Female
Male
18e30
31e40
41e50
51e60
60
Illiterate
Elementary
Junior high
Senior high
Good
Average
Weak
Yes
No

174
218
15
123
144
80
30
43
112
178
59
268
86
38
86
306

44.4
55.6
3.8
31.4
36.7
20.4
7.7
11
28.6
45.4
15
68.4
21.9
9.7
21.9
78.1

water-saving agricultural technologies; (2) reactions to irrigation

water price reforms and (3) perception of new water allocation
strategies and management institutions. Survey questions and
statements were also included to assess farmers' perception of
WUAs including their (1) understanding of WUAs; (2) degree of
support for WUAs; and (3) involvement in WUAs decision-making
processes. We used a reliability analysis to ensure the scales were
internally reliable (scales with a Cronbach's alpha coefcient of 0.7
or greater were accepted as reliable).
3.2. Data analysis
The data were analyzed statistically using descriptive statistics,
correlation analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and chi-square
testing. We used the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS),
Version 16.0 for Windows to analyze data; the minimum level of
statistical signicance was p < 0.05.
4. Results
4.1. Contextual information
Table 2 summarizes the data from the surveys. The average
farmer in the sample was 45 years of age, and nearly 95% of the
farmers were married. Rural women devoted more time and effort
to agricultural activities than men, highlighting the trend of the
feminization of agriculture in Minqin. A Pearson chi-square test
indicated a signicant difference between women and men, with
24 out of 174 (13.8%) of the women working as migrant workers, as
compared to 62 out of 218 (28.4%) men (c2 12.122; df 1;
P 0.000).
Small-scale farmers in the Minqin oasis rely on land as their
principal livelihood asset. In 2008, the predominant crops (by area)
were cotton (25.4%), pepper (18.4%), corn (14.8%), sunower (13.7%)

Table 2
Rural household resources and socio-economic characteristics.

Household size
Adult labor force
Household Cultivated land area (ha)
Rented land area (ha)
Land area under the GTGP (ha)
Wasteland reclamation area (ha)
Amount of sheep breeding
Amount of loan (USD)

Min

Max

Mean

392
392
392
129
85
151
392
218

1
1
0.08
0.05
0.04
0.01
0
58.8

7
5
4.59
3
1.27
10.7
60
41134

4.3
2.47
1.09
0.56
0.27
0.82
9.12
1619.2

165

and wheat (11.5%). Among the samples, 38.5% of rural households

had reclaimed wasteland in desert marginal areas between 1980
and 2006. In 2008, 32.9% rented land from collective farms, collective forestry farms, or the owners of the contracted land.
Greenhouses had been built by 11% of the respondents for commercial vegetable and fruit production. In addition, 21.7% had
participated in the Grain to Green Program (GTGP), which has
worked since 2002 to return croplands not suitable for agriculture
to forests or grasslands. The annual subsidies per hectare were 2100
Yuan (USD 308 at the time of our surveys).
The average annual net income per household in the sample was
RMB 11,024 (USD 1615). Income from crop production constituted
the largest share (59%), followed by off-farm employment (20%),
and livestock husbandry (7%) (Fig. 3). However, because of barriers
to market access, the greenhouse industry for vegetables and fruits
has been strongly subsidized by local government policies and
contributed less than 5% of total household income. Traditional
farming remains the mainstay of agricultural production. Approximately 4.37  108 m3 of water was allocated to irrigation in 2008;
this represents 75% of Minqin's total water consumption (Fig. 4).
The average cost for irrigation water per household was 1651 RMB
(USD 242), which accounted for 17.1% of the total crop production
costs.
4.2. Farmers' attitude toward IWRM
Sixteen statements in the survey quantied the farmers' attitudes toward IWRM (Table 3). The results of the frequency analysis
show that over 70% of the respondents held a negative attitude
toward water price reforms such as increased surface water prices
(79.6% against), upward adjustments in the groundwater resources
levy (86% against), and scalar pricing mechanisms (73.2% against).
However, most respondents (60%) favored allocating water resources on the basis of the household population. Small-scale
farmers also responded positively to the introduction of watersaving agricultural technologies as additive measures. The data
show that 95.6% of the respondents favored irrigation ditch antiseepage measures (including pipeline irrigation technologies) and
59.7% favored drip irrigation.
In addition, an increase in the percentage of water-saving cash
crops was widely approved (82.6%). However, only 10.7% of the
respondents favored the construction of greenhouses for commercial vegetable and fruit production. Although the trading of
irrigation water rights has been viewed as an innovative solution to
water issues, only 3.6% of the households traded their irrigation
water rights within their communities. As irrigation water quotas
continued to shrink, farmers who use groundwater for irrigation
had no surplus water to trade, and the trading events were the
result of social, not economic, considerations.
From 2006 to 2009, 2295 pumping wells in Minqin oasis were
shut down to control the unrestrained exploitation of groundwater
resources for irrigation. Farmers have undertaken several measures
to cope with the resultant water scarcity (Table 4). The results of the
survey show that developing water-saving cash crops was ranked
as the most important priority by 35.4% of the respondents,

Fig. 3. Income structure of rural households in 2008.

166

X.-J. Hu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 145 (2014) 162e169

Table 4
Measures used to cope with IWRM (%).
Measures

Ranking
First Second Third

Developing water-saving cash crops

Reducing the frequency of eld crop irrigation
Adopting simple water-saving surface irrigation methods
Abandoning a portion of farmland
Transferring labor force to non-agricultural work
Introducing drought-tolerant crop varieties
Developing animal husbandry

Fig. 4. Water consumption in Minqin County in 2008.

followed by reducing the frequency of eld crop irrigation (34.9%),

and adopting simple water-saving surface irrigation methods
(15.1%).
The equity of IWRM water allocation is a primary concern for
small-scale farmers. Survey data indicate that 45.7% of the respondents thought the existing water resources allocation policy
was inequitable, 37.2% thought that the water allocation policy was
equitable, and 17.1% were neutral. The results of the one-way
Table 3
Descriptive statistics and reliability analysis e quantication of small-scale farmers'
attitude towards IWRM (a 0.724).
Survey itemsa

Mean

S.D.

Item-total
correlation

a if item
deleted

Allocating water based

on the principle of
total amount control
Allocating water based
on the principle of
quota management
Raising surface water
prices in the irrigation
period
Imposing groundwater
resources levy for
irrigation
Raising groundwater
resources levy for
irrigation
Establishing scalar
irrigation water
pricing mechanism
Giving priority to
fundamental
ecological water
requirement
Allocating water
preferentially
to the water-saving
and high-value crops
Increasing the percentage
of water-saving cash crops
Building commercial
greenhouses for vegetables
and fruits production
Promoting the use of drip
irrigation technologies
Constructing anti-seepage
irrigation channel
Installing automatic
metering equipment
in the pumping wells
Purchasing water tickets
in irrigation period
Promoting water use rights
trading between different
stakeholders
Establishing Farmer Water
Users Associations (WUAs)

3.35

1.205

0.336

0.718

2.96

1.179

0.516

0.697

1.92

0.825

0.354

0.717

2.32

1.114

0.402

0.710

1.18

0.863

0.366

0.716

2.12

1.094

0.412

0.710

2.49

1.164

0.251

0.727

3.81

0.980

0.230

0.728

4.01

0.834

0.295

0.722

1.90

1.035

0.279

0.723

3.55

1.143

0.245

0.727

4.38

0.660

0.039

0.738

2.71

1.252

0.528

0.694

3.04

1.168

0.538

0.694

2.77

1.232

0.113

0.743

3.78

0.799

0.248

0.726

a
Measured on a 5-point scale: 1: strongly disapprove, 2: disapprove, 3: neutral, 4:
approve, 5: strongly approve.

35.4
34.9
15.1
12.5
1.8
0.3
0

19.1
34.0
17.9
13.5
2.8
0.5
1.0

8.7
18.1
13.0
8.9
4.8
3.3
0.3

ANOVA show a signicant difference among the three groups

about attitudes toward IWRM at the 95% condence level
(F 4.837; df 2, 389; P 0.008). The results of subsequent
multiple comparisons using least signicant difference at the 0.05
probability level show that the degree of support for IWRM among
the farmers who believed the irrigation water allocation policy was
equitable signicantly exceeded that of small-scale farmers who
considered the water policy to be unfair.
4.3. Farmers' perceptions of WUAs
WUAs were established in every administrative village of Minqin when IWRM was rst implemented; however, data from our
Table 5
Descriptive statistics and reliability analysis e quantication of small-scale farmers'
perception of WUAs (a 0.723).
Survey items

Mean

S.D.

Item-total
correlation

a if item
deleted

The establishment of WUA in

our village is based on the
democratic principlea
The leaders of WUA should be
appointed by the local
authoritiesb
I understand the organization
structure and the roles of
WUA in our villagea
The WUA in our village is a
governmental organizationb
The WUA in our village
discloses water-related
nancial information at
regular intervalsa
My water-related rights and
interests can be protected
effectively by the WUAa
I often express my own
opinions or suggestions to
the WUA in our villagea
The water-related decisions
should be made by the
leaders of the WUAb
My opinions and suggestions
can be taken seriously into
consideration by the WUAa
The WUA in our village does not
seem to have much meaning
for my familyb
The WUA in our village is a
trustworthy organizationa
The WUA is important for me to
manage water and provide
irrigation servicesa

3.04

1.162

0.468

0.686

3.43

1.188

0.078

0.739

2.54

1.345

0.377

0.699

2.73

1.084

0.191

0.722

3.25

1.293

0.430

0.691

3.54

1.043

0.502

0.684

2.38

1.282

0.351

0.703

3.69

1.080

0.056

0.738

3.08

1.167

0.525

0.678

3.05

1.134

0.356

0.702

3.47

0.991

0.452

0.691

3.46

1.065

0.511

0.682

a
Measured on a 5-point scale: 1: strongly disapprove, 2: disapprove, 3: neutral, 4:
approve, 5: strongly approve.
b
Measured on a 5-point scale: 1: strongly approve, 2: approve, 3: neutral, 4:
disapprove, 5: strongly disapprove.

X.-J. Hu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 145 (2014) 162e169

surveys show that 44.9% of the respondents did not clearly understand the purpose of the organizations. Twelve statements in
the survey assessed the farmers' perceptions of WUAs (Table 5). The
results from the frequency analysis show that 53.1% of the respondents thought WUAs were governmental organizations,
whereas 59% did not understand the organizational structure and
functions of WUAs. Many members of the villagers' committees
also served as the leaders of WUAs. Most respondents (62.5%) said
they had never expressed an opinion or given a suggestion
regarding water-related affairs while 32.9% believed that their
suggestions and opinions were not seriously considered by WUA
leadership. WUA decision-making processes were considered to
lack transparency and accountability (e.g., nancial information
disclosure) by 34.2% of the respondents. The results of bivariate
correlation analysis between the degree of support for IWRM and
perception of WUAs are statistically signicant at the 95% condence level (R 0.295, N 392, P 0.000).
Although WUAs are still not operating in accordance with their
designed objectives, 77.1% of respondents expressed support for the
establishment of WUAs. A large portion of the respondents (43.9%)
stressed that the WUAs were essential for managing irrigation
water resources and providing necessary services. Most (56.1%)
were in favor of the establishment of WUAs, upon the democratic
principle of majority rule and 69.1% thought that the process of
decision-making for water-related activities (such as formulating
the annual water use plan, imposing water fees and allocating
water rights) should be discussed openly by members of the WUAs.
In addition, 59.4% and 63.6% of respondents expressed trust in
existing WUAs and villagers' committees, respectively. The results
of bivariate correlation analysis using the Kendall tau-b rank correlation coefcient test indicate that the degree of trust of respondents felt toward WUAs was signicantly and positively
correlated to the degree of trust they felt toward villagers' committees (R 0.374, N 392, P < 0.01).
As irrigation water becomes less available in Minqin, water disputes and conicts become more frequent and intense. Survey results indicate that 11.7% of the respondents have had disputes over
water. A signicant minority (30.4%) had requested more water for
irrigation; of these (N 119) only 6.7% made the request directly to
the WUA, while 62.2% said they received no response to their requests, which led to their dissatisfaction with the water management institutions. Illegal exploitation of groundwater (stealing
water), which is strictly forbidden by the government, is on the rise.
According to IWRM principles and approaches, rural women are
encouraged to participate in the farmer WUAs. Survey results show
that 80.6% of respondents considered it necessary to empower rural
women so they can play more important roles in irrigation water
management and other water-related areas. The results of the oneway ANOVA show a signicant difference between men and
women with respect to the degree of support for IWRM at the 95%
condence level (F 13.754; df 1, 390; P 0.000), with rural
women being much less supportive of the IWRM reform. No signicant difference was found between men and women with
respect to their perception of WUAs (F 3.305; df 1, 390;
P 0.07).
4.4. Results of participant observation
Participant observation results were used primarily to better
understand the decision-making process in IWRM and reveal why
WUAs have been unable to function effectively. The natural village
is the basic organizational unit in the irrigation process, and smallscale farmers have shown that they can organize themselves
spontaneously and rapidly at this level for collective irrigation
within the scheduled time.

167

In general, the irrigation process at the natural village level can

be divided into three stages: notication, consensus-reaching, and
implementation. Once the leaders of a natural village receive waterrelated notices (from the administrative village), they provide all
rural households with information on the quantity of irrigation
water allotted, the costs, and other irrigation issues such as maintenance of the irrigation channels. Much of the subsequent work
focuses on reaching consensus about organizing and planning
irrigation activities, which often requires frequent community
meetings. For example, during the study period, as many as 80
meetings were held in Q natural village. Eventually, the farmers
implement the agreed-upon irrigation plans.
The observed community meetings focused on three main issues: (1) detailed planning of irrigation activities (e.g., irrigation
order, water use efciency, and plot prioritydincluding the abandonment of plots as a result of decreased allocations); (2) collection
of irrigation-related fees and calculation of nancial compensation
for households that received no opportunity to irrigate their elds
with surface water; and (3) work division and rule-making rules,
which required careful coordination among rural households.
Farmers often met many times to discuss a particular topic and
reach a consensus.
During this qualitative observation, we also noted that rural
women seldom participated in community meetings on water
management. The leaders of the natural village typically informed
men, who are normally the heads of households, of the meetings.
However, since a representative from each household was
required to be present at every meeting to ensure the meeting
validity, women did attend meetings when their husbands were
unavailable or were tired of attending too-frequent meetings.
Most women sat silently in a corner of the room without offering
opinions or suggestions; men took more responsibility for
formulating irrigation procedures, organizing collective action,
and undertaking irrigation tasks (e.g., scheduling and patrolling
the irrigation channels).
5. Discussion
This study revealed several critical ndings. The market-based
instruments widely adopted by the government to achieve an
efcient allocation of water resources in arid regions (Yang, 2003;
Zhang, 2007; Zhang and Zhang, 2008) have not provided sufcient incentives for farmers to improve irrigation management. As
costs increase (due to ofcial charges and pumping), small-scale
farmers have become more sensitive to changes in water prices
(Webber et al., 2008); most small-scale farmers strongly disapprove of the water pricing reform that has accompanied IWRM.
In the study area, IWRM is tightly controlled by the government
and remains a top-down administrative process that has not integrated community-based solutions into its framework and has
failed to provide a paradigm shift for water management. Because
the amount of water allocated for irrigation has gradually
decreased as a result of the IWRM reform, the income of small-scale
farmers from crop production has declined. In rural communities
affected by IWRM, most farmers use passive coping strategies and
have low adaptive capacities. In addition, the equity of water rights
allocation has a signicant impact on the degree of support for
IWRM.
Farmer WUAs are to decentralize water management in the
rural communities of Minqin, but our study indicates that the
creation of WUAs does not necessarily result in greater community
participation. As the number of water-related disputes and conicts
increases, the government merely strengthens administrative supervision over farmers' water use behavior. Thus, the social costs of
the IWRM reform have become increasingly high, leading to a

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X.-J. Hu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 145 (2014) 162e169

vicious cycle of increasing tension and decreasing trust between

the farmers and the government.
Although the Minqin WUAs have failed to function effectively
or produce essential changes in water governance, most smallscale farmers in our study were in favor of WUAs because they
believe WUAs can play a major role in community-based water
resources management. The farmers have high trust in the
leaders of the natural villages, who serve as facilitators in the
process of irrigation water management. Our ndings indicate
that WUAs are unable to function effectively for four main
reasons:
(1) Overlapping organizational structures between the farmer
WUAs and the villagers' committees. In our study, most members
of the villagers' committees held leadership posts in the WUAs,
and there was considerable overlap in the structure of the two
organizations (Huang et al., 2010). Although the Organic Law of
the Villagers Committees of the People's Republic of China indicates that villagers' committees are autonomous organizations
of community residents for managing village affairs, these committees have become increasingly bureaucratic and administrative, and often undertake tasks assigned by the township
governments. By extension, WUAs have come to be regarded as
governmental organizations by many farmers. In reality, WUA
operation and the maintenance of irrigation networks are still
highly dependent on governmental power and resources. Given
these circumstances, it becomes impossible to empower smallscale farmers to manage their irrigation resources through formation of WUAs.
(2) Mismatch between the level of the WUAs and the scale of
irrigation water management performed by the farmers (Cumming
et al., 2006). In this study, WUAs were all established at the
administrative village level, thus leaders of the natural villages
were not fully involved in the decision-making process, despite
their important role in irrigation management. Although local
governments can better control organizations at the administrative
village level, our study indicates that the natural village is more
suitable for promoting community-based irrigation organizations.
At the natural village level, small-scale farmers act collectively for
irrigation management based on their traditional self-organized
and cooperative networks.
(3) Rural women are marginalized in community decisionmaking and do not play a substantial role in irrigation water
management, despite the increasing feminization of agriculture in
northwest China as adult men seek off-farm employment in cities
and towns. Although women are becoming a primary force for
promoting local sustainability, most rural women have no access to
training in water-saving technologies. The lack of empowerment
among rural women decreases the communities' capacity to
respond to impacts of water shortages and related policy changes
(Norris et al., 2008; Alessa et al., 2008).
(4) Inexible IWRM implementation hinders WUA functionality.
The IWRM process and the establishment of WUAs continue
to employ top-down governmental mobilization approaches,
characterized by rigid uniformity. IWRM reform in the study
area consists of a series of quantitative constraining indicators that maintain government control. Our study
shows that rural communities in this area are complex and
dynamic coupled systems, with diverse land property rights,
patterns of water use, and irrigation methods. Inexible
IWRM implementation at the community level heightens the
perception of inequitable irrigation water allocation, and
prevents WUAs from responding to the practical needs of
small-scale farmers and coordinating conicts of interests
among stakeholders.

6. Conclusions and recommendations

Effective management of water resources is a critical policy
issue in arid areas. With a better understanding of the coupled
social-ecological systems, there is an increasing appreciation of the
role of community-based organizations in water resources management. As a new management paradigm, WUAs has been adopted widely by the government for promoting the IWRM reform in
the arid regions of NW China, but lack support from small-scale
farmers. This study reveals several reasons why WUAs are unable
to function effectively at the community level. The implication from
this study is that the IWRM reform should use measures that
reinforce locally available agricultural technologies adapted to arid
conditions. This will facilitate a shift from water-intensive crops to
water-saving crops and re-create a farmer-centered agricultural,
socialized service network.
Our ndings indicate that local innovation and community
involvement in water management remains constrained because of
a top-down IWRM implementation structure. More focus is needed
on creating institutional space for small-scale farmers and local
ofcials (particularly township and village ofcials) to explore options for improved water resource management and livelihood
adaptation based on local conditions. The equity of water allocation
should also be considered as an important factor in promoting the
IWRM reform.
Finally, and most importantly, in order to gain support from
farmers and farm communities, the study suggests that rebuilding
farmer WUAs and promoting the development of communitybased water management system should remain a priority of the
IWRM reform. Management practices can be improved through a
series of practical measures. These include clarifying the responsibilities and relationships between farmer WUAs and villagers' committees; promoting the establishment of the natural
villageebased farmer WUAs that embed informal social institutions
and self-organized networks for irrigation water management; and
increasing rural women's participation in WUAs and community
water-related decision-making in the context of feminization of
agriculture.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Social Science
Foundation of China (08XSH011) and the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (lzujbky-2012-k02). We would
like to thank Mi Zhou of the Department of Sociology at Lanzhou
University for her help in improving the survey questionnaire
design and Baocheng Jin of the School of Life Sciences at Lanzhou
University for creating the map depicted in Fig. 1. We are grateful to
Wenting Zhang, Shiling Lin, Jian Liu, Yanhua Zhang, Xiaohui Yang,
Chuhui Yuan, Shaojun Zhu, and Jing Dai of Lanzhou University, Mei
Deng of Northwest Normal University, and Jing Chai of Lanzhou City
College for assistance with data collection, scoring, and entry. In
addition, we appreciate the helpful suggestions of KuoRay Mao of
the University of Kansas in the preparation of this paper.
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