ABSTRACT
The Japanese government prioritized irrigation and flood prevention following World War II by establishing a new legal framework. In the new framework, irrigation and flood prevention were divided between two separate management systems, with irrigation management maintaining a bottom-up approach while flood prevention shifted to a top-down, government-directed approach. These two strategies increased agricultural productivity and decreased flood damage in the short term, and they enhanced economic development and food security in the long term. The differences between the two approaches yield several lessons for water resource management in a post-conflict period, particularly with regard to institutional capacity, effective management with limited supplies, consensus building between local populations and the government, and creation of membership incentives through collection of fees.
