THE EC ALLOCATES 3.5 MILLION EURO TO CENTRAL ASIAN STATES TO STRUGGLE AGAINST NATURAL DISASTERS
The European Commission announced on last Friday the allocation of 3.5 million euro to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to struggle against natural calamities. Nearly 80% of this sum is given to Tajikistan, the EC’s Office for Humanitarian Aid in Tajikistan reported on 8 August.
These funds allocated under the ÅÑ DIPECHO Program will help local authorities in the most dangerous areas to predict possible catastrophes better, improve the preparedness to quickly help suffering population. The matter concerns financing activities to “strengthen small-scale infrastructures”. The program provides for rendering assistance to local authorities in risk assessment, planning civil response to catastrophes, developing early warning systems, and delivering equipment to rescue teams.
Commenting the Commission’s announcement, Deputy Minister of Emergencies of Tajikistan A.Rajabov said, “The damage caused by natural disasters to Tajikistan over the period from January to August this year has been estimated more than $100 million, of which $60 million due to damage to Khamadoni district.” The disasters killed 42 people.
The Disaster Preparedness Program ECHO (DIPECHO) has been implemented since 1996, and over this time more than 319 projects have been completed at a cost of 78 million euro around the world. 9 million euro has been allocated since 2003 to the program in Central Asia.
Kazakhstan today
SEMINARS AT PILOT WUAS IN FERGANA VALLEY UNDER THE IWRM-FERGANA PROJECT
Seminars on “Organization of water accounting at Water User Associations (WUAs) (selecting place and type of means for water accounting, procedure for construction, appraisal and certification of water accounting facilities, developing a water accounting system)” took place on 17-22 August 2005 at pilot WUAs “Zarafshan” (Tajikistan), “Akbarabad” (Uzbekistan) and Zhapalak (Kyrgyzstan) under the IWRM-Fergana Project. 139 people took part in the seminars.
M.A. Pinkhasov, Ph.D, Manager of WUA Activities IWRM-Fergana Project, delivered a paper on the “Issues of providing with water accounting facilities and resolving water disputes at WUAs”.
The paper stated:
- the condition of water accounting facilities on irrigation and collector-drainage network at pilot WUAs in the three countries of the Fergana Valley;
- activities of the IWRM-Fergana Project to provide on-farm networks of pilot WUAs in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan with water accounting facilities;
- causes of water disputes and conflicts;
- conditions for considering disputes and conflicts at arbitration boards of WUAs, Canal Water Committees (CWCs), courts of elders and WUA regulatory bodies at the ministries of agriculture and water resources;
- necessary measures to prevent disputes between water users, between water users and WUAs, between WUAs and water organizations; and
- a recommended mechanisms for resolving different disputes.
As for the matter on the condition of water accounting facilities up to beginning of activities under the IWRM-Fergana Project, the lecturer noted that no secondary canal and its branches met water accounting requirements: head outlets supplying water to a number of newly organized farms were not equipped with water accounting facilities, the need of WUA canals and their branches for various water accounting facilities was not determined. There is a similar picture with water accounting facilities for the existing collector-drainage network.
Investigating irrigation and drainage systems at pilot WUAs, the project executors identified:
- a need for conducting repair and renewal operations at the existing stations;
- a need for additional various water accounting facilities; and
- a necessity for log books inventory, recalibration and recertification at the existing gauging stations.
The lecturer dwelled on the contribution of the IWRM-Fergana Project and ministries of agriculture and water resources in the three Fergana Valley states to equipping irrigation and drainage networks of pilot WUAs with new water accounting facilities, taking measures for calibrating and certifying the existing gauging stations, and giving trainings for WUA staff and water users in organizing water accounting.
For example, in phase 2 of the IWRM-Fergana Project at the three pilot WUAs altogether, 209 units of various water-measuring facilities and 71 gauging platforms were identified, including respectively 66 and 30 units at WUA “Akbarabad”, 25 and 9 – WUA “Zarafshan”, and 118 and 32 – WUA “Zhapalak”.
The lecture noted that the causes of water disputes and conflicts are weak public monitoring of water bodies, weak water consumption planning at “WMO–association” level, lack of transparency and awareness of WMO and WUA activities, poor equipment of irrigation and drainage network with water accounting facilities, violation of irrigation regimes and depths, lack of knowledge of WUA personnel and water users about laws and standard acts regulating water use, untimely payment for water services and so on.
The important condition for considering disputes at Arbitration Boards of WUAs and CWCs or other organs is a ground, based on which disputes and conflicts are considered. Such grounds can be fixation in special logs on made request for water, on release of water confirmed by representatives of WUAs and water users, timetables for water supply to users confirmed by directorate of WUA and so on.
With a view to preventing disputes between water users, between water users and WUA, between WUA and water organization, the lecturer recommended:
- to equip water inlet points of users with water accounting facilities;
- before starting irrigation, draw a well-grounded water use plan for the whole WUA and each farm, WUA member;
- strengthen governmental and public control over water use;
- create conditions for transparency and awareness of activities of state water authorities and water user associations;
- improve and upgrade the technical condition of irrigation and collector-drainage systems of different levels; and
- periodically give trainings for WUA personnel and farmers in water use, water, land and civil law, IWRM.
In conclusion of his presentation, M.A. Pinkhasov proposed a mechanism for settling different disputes (kinds of disputes and organs that consider them).
Consultant on hydrometry R.R. Masumov presented papers on “Selection of site and type of water measuring facilities” and “Preparation and construction of gauging stations. Registration, calibration and certification”.
In his first paper, he elucidated the following positions:
- requirements for installing weirs VT, VCh, VS;
- how to select type of water-metering devices depending on location slope, flow movement regime, size of measured canal flow range, presence of suspended sediments;
- requirements for manufacturing and operation of SANIIRI flume (SF);
- methods for calibrating parabolic flume (PF);
- methods for calibrating gauging stations, processing in-situ water flow measurements, constructing graph and table of coordinates.
In his second presentation R. Masumov dwelled on the following issues:
- list of preparatory activities;
- order of actions in construction of a gauging station;
- list of necessary documents for making log books and preparing gauging stations for calibration and certification;
- calibration and certification of gauging stations; and
- frequency of calibration.
The second day, the participants of the seminar were acquainted with the practical side of gauging station construction under the direction of R. Masumov:
- selecting site for construction of gauging stations;
- selecting type of water-measuring facilities;
- sequence of gauging station construction cycles.
IWMI representative, head of Fergana field office K. Jumabayev delivered a paper on “Module 5 – Assessment of water management results at WUA level”.
In his speech, the lecturer suggested “assessing the main indicators of WUA operation results by 4 groups of indicators – water supply, hydro reclamation system maintenance, financing and sustainability”.
He suggested assessing water supply by “ratio between days of sufficient water supply to end sites and the total amount of days of water supply to end plots” or by “water supply uniformity”, which is determined by “ratio between water supply to zones with low water supply and average water supply to WUA”.
Then K. Jumabayev dwelled on four financial-economic indicators: collection of service charges from water users, shares of GIS operation and maintenance costs in WUA budget, WUA completeness with specialists and financial self-sufficiency.
The lecturer assesses the sustainability of WUA functioning by indicators “sustainability of irrigated lands” and “change in areas with shallow groundwater level”.
Assistant WUA Activities A. Alimjanov presented a paper on “Organization of water accounting and its role in water allocation at WUAs”.
In his paper, he noted that water use at WUAs begins from making up daily and decade schedules of water allocation between water users according to requests for water made by them.
Water accounting on WUA irrigation systems is carried out by using a network of calibrated gauging stations, which are divided into head, distributive and escape ones.
Water accounting at WUAs should be organized in the following order:
- WUA draws up daily schedules of water allocation among water users over WUA canals;
- hydrometrists of WUA take every day three water measurements at gauging stations according to drawn up daily water allocation schedules;
- during water allocation by hydrometrist from WUA at gauging station of water users, the presence of specially appointed representative from farm is necessary;
- data on water measurements at gauging stations are recorded by hydrometrist of WUA in special water accounting log;
- hydrometrist of WUA and water users affix their signatures in water accounting log for every water receipt.
In cases of deviation of water flows from water supply schedule, it is necessary to correct the latter.
Specialist in water allocation S.R. Khamdamov red two papers on “Operation mode of water-measuring facilities” and “Practical measurement of WUA canal water flow using flow meter GR-21”.
The lecturer talked about the tasks of irrigation water accounting service, types of gauging stations at canals and collectors, organization of water accounting at them, and requirements to water accounting facilities under diverse operation modes.
The second presentation described technical and constructive characteristics of flow meter GR-21 and showed in practice a technology for measuring WUA canal flow rate.
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