ABSTRACT
To cope with the unpredictability in occurrence and destructive nature of the flood water, and to attain the stated objectives, the farmers put in place a set of water rights and rules as the main pillar of their water management system. The two most important water rights and rules were:
- Water right on sequence. This water right adjusts to the size of floods and allocates medium and smaller floods (≤ 50 m3 s-1) and occasionally moderately-large floods (50 to 100 m3 s-1) to the upstream fields; moderately-large and sometimes large floods (100 to 200 m3 s-1) to the midstream fields; large, and very large floods (200 to 265 m3 s-1) to the downstream fields;
- Water right on irrigation turns. This water right states that a certain field can get a second, third and fourth turn, only after all other fields receive one, two and three turns respectively. It further directs that in a new year, regardless of their location, the fields that remained dry in the previous year should get one turn before any of the other fields.
