This chapter examines Robert Chambers' work on canal management and its influence on irrigation management thinking, methodologies for research and action and the institutions engaged in irrigation research and action. To understand properly the influence of Robert’s work on main system management, we must remember that when Robert started writing about the subject in the 1970s, the idea of management itself was almost anathema among irrigation engineers in India and elsewhere. Robert’s focus on rural livelihoods rather than agricultural production also had an important influence on irrigation thinking at the time that he wrote on the subject. In writing about irrigation in the 1980s, Robert approached the subject from a poverty, livelihoods and rural development perspective.