Does reliability of water resources matter in the adoption of water-saving irrigation practices? A case study in the Zhanghe irrigation system, China

The aim of the study was to determine whether the reliability of water sources is important in the adoption of water-saving irrigation practices (WSI). It was hypothesized that access to reliable water sources such as water ponds would increase the likelihood of practicing alternate wetting and drying (AWD) for rice cultivation. While it seems intuitively reasonable to assume that farmer's ability to access reliable water sources would reduce the risk involved in letting the paddy field dry temporarily, and therefore encourage the adoption of AWD, this study found no solid empirical evidence to support the proposition. However, weaker empirical evidence shows that access to reliable water supply from local ponds positively influences AWD practices. The results show that the adoption of AWD is not driven by farmer's self choice but rather that they are adopting AWD to mitigate risk in the face of increasing water scarcity. The result suggests that water-saving irrigation training and farm size or land distribution system have an important role in the adoption of AWD practices. The policy implication of this research is that imposing institutional water scarcity could be a way to promote the adoption of water-saving irrigation practices.