• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.132-146
• /
• 2001

Rice cultivation is not only the main resource of farm income and staple food but also the root of cultural life of Korean people. Korean government has carried out irrigation water development with heavy investment to cope with water shortage in rice fanning as a link of the five years economic development plans. In spite of the continuous accomplishment of irrigation water development, the marginal benefits-costs of irrigation water has not been studied. Owing to the government full support for the operation and maintenance of irrigation facilities, price of irrigation water as a membership fee could not be formed as the municipal and industrial water prices. Accordingly this study is aimed at identifying firstly the marginal benefits-cost of irrigation water, secondly deriving the macro-econometrics models as supply and demand functions of irrigation water and thirdly examining the marginal benefits-cost ratio. The trends of supply and demand prices of irrigation water were estimated annually. Considering the marginal benefits-cost ratio as 1.3, it was identified that additional irrigation water development projects still have an economic feasibility under the present economic situation in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.55 no.4
• /
• pp.45-53
• /
• 2013

Efficient water operation and management of an irrigation system plays an important element in the sustainability of irrigated agriculture. An agricultural water is delivered in many open canals of irrigation delivery system by reservoirs. The poor water distribution and management in an irrigation system is a major factor leading to low water efficiency. It is necessary to compare the estimated irrigation demands with the actual water supplies for decision making to maintain the water supply according to demand strategy. Smarter water management, new technologies and improvement of water management system, is essential to solve the problem of water efficiency and availability. In this paper, the irrigation efficiencies according to water delivery performance indicator were measured with automatic water gauge at irrigation canals, and calculated from spatial and temporal distribution of water supply for the lack of planning in water delivery. The analysis of results are obtain an insight into possible improvement methods to develop canal water management policies that enable irrigation planners to optimally manage scarce available water resources.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.53-75
• /
• 2004

This study is aimed at identifying the national economic value of the irrigation facilities by reviewing the existing papers on economic values of the irrigation facilities and presenting current status of dual O & M problems of the irrigation facilities. This study suggested the unified O & M system rather than continuing the existing dual O & M system of irrigation facilities based on the surveyed results of the activities of irrigation fraternities in Chungnam Province. The findings and proposals for the successful unified and mono O & M system of the irrigation facilities are as follows: (1) Total number of irrigation facilities in the nation accounts for 67,582, while the total length of irrigation and drainage canals amounted to about 174,259km. On account of the total length of structural canals was estimated at 31%, much losses of water and much O & M costs have been inevitable for the full irrigation rice culture. In spite of the past heavy investment for irrigation facilities, the ratio of rain-fed and partially irrigated paddy fields accounts for 23% in 2003. Both Korea Agricultural and Rural Infrastructure Corporation (KARICO) and the city and Gun Governments have managed the irrigation facilities separately by irrigation fraternities. The KARICO have commanded 59% of irrigation paddy area with 18% of the total irrigation facilities, while the city and Gun governments covered 41% of irrigation paddy area with 82% of the existing number of irrigation facilities representing small and medium scale. (2) The 1999 demand prices of irrigation water per ton expressed in 2000 constant market price was estimated at 388 won, the supply price was amounted to 184 won per ton. Considering the supply and demand curve of the irrigation water, the existing irrigation facilities could not satisfy the demand of irrigation water. (3) In 1999, total present added value of the irrigation facilities during the economic life accounted for 48 trillion won, while total supply cost was 44.7 trillion won. The marginal benefit and cost ratio of irrigation water was 1.08. (4) The total O & M cost per year amounting to 681.1 billion won have been required to maintain and repair the existing irrigation facilities in Korea. For the successful unified O & M of irrigation facilities covering whole irrigated paddy field in Korea, 950 billion won of O & M costs are required to keep up the marginal benefit of irrigation water as 2,800 billion won per year. The total O & M cost as 950 billion won should be allocated 40%, 380 billion won for O & M costs of irrigation facilities and 60%, 570 billion won for improvement of irrigation facilities. (5) The study investigated and reviewed the present O & M status of the irrigation facilities by small and medium irrigation fraternities. Most of the farmers belong to the irrigation fraternities preferred not only unified O & M but also KARICO take-over of the whole O & M activities of the irrigation facilities. The prevailing O & M cost per 10a expended by the Corporation was amounted to 104,890 won, while that of city and Gun governments was only amounted to 4,600 won per 10a. regarding the small amount of O & M cost expended by city and Gun governments, it is evident that the existing irrigation system have been managed ineffectively and deteriorated the facilities comparing that of KARICO. In conclusion, the Government could not satisfied the demand of irrigation water by suppling water with existing irrigation facilities. Therefore new additional investment and financial support for irrigation water development should be made to convert rain-fed and partially irrigated paddy fields into fully irrigated ones. The operation and maintenance cost should be supported to keep the marginal values of rice production of existing irrigation facilities in the national economy and to modernize the obsolete irrigation facilities. By unifying the existing dual O & M systems, all the farmers belong to the irrigated paddy fields have to be equally benefited and could be increased their farm income and be stabilized their rural lives.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
• /
• 2002.10a
• /
• pp.37-40
• /
• 2002

It is to show the problems of the existing techniques to estimate agricultural water demand and to suggest the new methods considering the water demand for non-irrigated area and decrease of water loss in canal. It is to suggest the methods to improve the techniques for estimating agricultural water demand and to analyze the water demand and supply according to the facilities capacity. Until now, the concept of per the unit used to estimate agriculture water demand is useful to estimate demand, but is insufficient to cope with the variations of conditions in future. And the paddy area of government is not realistic against a trend of decrease. Water demand decrease is caused by constructions of irrigation facilities as constructing of irrigation canal, but application loss ratio is fixed. Increase of the water demand owing to the increase of the yield per the unit area is also the actual condition which is not considered. The guide-line must contain these contents for a demand estimate.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.37 no.E
• /
• pp.47-54
• /
• 1995

Irrigation water has been mainly used for paddy rice. Irrigated paddy land tends to be recently converted to land for green house, farm house, and rural-industrial complex. Consequently, demand of water for crops, domestic & industrial, rural recreations, small-scaled hydropower, livestocks, and environment in the rural area, so called rural water, is rapidly increasing. In order to supply rural water, water in the existing irrigation reservoir could be enlarged by repairment of irrigation canal and reinforcement of irrigation reservoir, and be saved by the operation rule curve, utilization of dead water, and balanced storage management.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.55 no.6
• /
• pp.77-85
• /
• 2013

The efficient operation and management strategies of reservoirs in irrigation periods of drought events are an essential element for drought planning and countermeasure. Korea Rural Community Corporation has developed the real-time water level observation system of agricultural reservoirs to efficiently operate reservoirs, however, it is not possible to predict drought conditions, and only provides information of current situation. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate accurate irrigation vulnerability and efficiently reservoir operation rules using current water level. In this paper, the improvement methods of reservoir operation planning were developed with water supply vulnerability characteristic curves comparing to automatic water gauge at agricultural reservoirs. The 11 reservoirs were simulated applying the reservoir operation rules which was determined by irrigation vulnerability characteristic curves criteria and real time water level, and evaluated water supply situation in 2012 year. The analysis of results can be identified probabilistic possibility of water supply failures compared with the existing reservoir operation criteria. These results of efficient reservoir operation rules can be achieved enable irrigation planners to optimally manage available water resources for decision making, and contributed to maintain the water supply according to demand strategy for agricultural reservoirs management.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.39 no.6
• /
• pp.41-53
• /
• 1997

It is important to build new irrigation facilities as a countermeasure against new water demand, however the effective use of existing facilities is rather advantageous economi cally and socially.Since many irrigation facilities were constructed before 1960's, the functions of them have been declined and rehabilitation of deteriorated facilities needs great expenses. To operate the irrigation facilities efficiently, the criteria for the maintenance and repair of irrigation facilities should be established according to the importance of structures. for the reasonable evaluation of the irrigation facilities, the Irrigation Facility Inquiry System(IFIS) was developed. The present status of the irrigation facilities are grouped by the type and scale of structures, and the characteristics of irrigation facilities under control of Farmland Improvement Association(FIA) were analysed.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.139-147
• /
• 2013

This study analyzed agricultural water distribution systems for the utilization of water demand-oriented water supply systems. Three major TM/TC(telemeter/telecontrol) districts of agricultural water management were selected for analyzing the characteristics of the water distribution systems. In addition, the characteristics of the water supply systems for general water supply zones based on irrigation facilities were also investigated, along with the case of special water management during the drought season. As a result, high annual and monthly variations were observed for the water supply facilities, including the reservoirs and pumping stations. In particular, these variations were more obvious during the drought season, depending on the type of facility. The operations of the pumping stations and weirs were more sensitive to the stream levels than the reservoirs, and the smaller reservoirs were influenced more than the larger reservoirs. Therefore, a water-demand-oriented water supply system should consider the existing general practices of water management in the agricultural sector, and focus on achieving a laborsaving system rather than water conservation in the case of reservoirs. Equal water distribution from the start to the end point of irrigation channels could be an effective solution for managing pumping stations.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
• /
• 2015.05a
• /
• pp.222-222
• /
• 2015

Vietnam is one of the most vulnarable countries affected by climate change and sea level rise. One of the consequences of climate change and sea level rise is the increase of salinity intrusion into the rivers which is challenging to irrigation systems in coastal areas. This indicates the necessary to study the ability of taking water through sluice gates of irrigation systems in coastal zones, especially in the dry season with the effects of climate change and sea level rise in the future. In this paper, Nam Thai Binh irrigation system is selected as a case study. The irrigation system is one of 22 biggest irrigation systems of the Red River delta in Vietnam located in coastal region. The computed duration is selected in dry season to irrigate for Winter-Spring crops. The irrigation water for the study area is taken from different sluice gates along the Red River and the Tra Ly River. In this paper, MIKE-11 model was applied to assess the ability of taking water for irrigation of the study area in current situation and in the context of climate change and sea level rise senario in 2050 (under the medium emissions scenario (B2) published by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Vietnam published in 2012) with different condition of water availability. The operation of the gates depends on the water levels and sanility conditions. The sanility and water level at different water intake gates of Nam Thai Binh irrigation system were simulated with different senarios with and without climate change and sea level rise. The result shows that, under climate change and sea water level rise, some gates can take more water but some can not take water because of salinity excess and the total water taking from the different gates along the rivers decrease while the water demand is increase. The study indicates the necessary to study quantitatively some recommended solutions in the study area particularly and in coastal region generally in Vietnam to ensure water demand for irrigation and other purposes in the context of climate change and sea level rise in the future.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.44 no.7
• /
• pp.74-82
• /
• 2002

There are two major operation and management (O & M) systems in Korea, one by the Korea Agricultural and Rural Infrastructure Corporation (KARICO), a government corporation, and the other by non-KARICO, which includes Irrigation associations (IAs) and individual farmers under the supervision of city or county authorities. Main issues and constraints in the irrigation facility management are: (1) The dual system of the irrigation water management system; management by KARICO and that by IAs, and (2) From the commencement of KAICO in 2000, farmers were exempted from water charge. This is opposite to the international trend, which follows' user pay principle: Main specific strategies to improve irrigation management system are: (1) Introduction of water metering for water charge as well as water conservation, (2) Adoption of demand-oriented irrigation rather than supply-oriented to reduce waste of water, (3) To augment farmer's participation by forming water user associations, (4) To maintain consistency of government policy, (5) To promote roles of local governments, and (6) To reestablish the role of KARICO.