Comparative performance analysis of irrigation schemes in Kastamonu area located in northern Turkey

Performance analysis of six irrigation schemes in Kastamonu area located in northern Turkey were assessed using comparative performance indicators between the years 2008 and 2012. Performance indicators used for the analysis included relative water supply, financial performance as cost recovery ratio, maintenance expenditure to revenue ratio, operational cost per unit area, total cost per personnel employed on water delivery, revenue collection performance and service area per personnel. Additionally, production performance of the schemes were evaluated in terms of output per unit command area, output per unit irrigated area, output per unit irrigation supply and output per unit consumed-water. The results of the analysis indicated that all irrigation schemes except Asar had enough performance for the relative water supply ratios. Furthermore, cost recovery ratio and revenue collection performance was not satisfactory. On the other hand, maintenance expenditure to revenue, operational cost per unit area, total cost per person employed on water delivery and service area per personnel had performed well in most of schemes during the study years. Output per unit command area, output per unit irrigated area, output per unit irrigation supply and output per unit consumedwater were performed well for all schemes in the investigation year.


INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is a very important key for the socio-economic development of Turkey.Fresh water supply is the principle component of the agricultural practices in arid and semi-arid regions of Turkey.Thus the most important challenges for the management of agricultural lands is efficient use of fresh water resources in the region (Sayın et al., 2013).
Pressures on watersheds due to diverse demands with rapid increase in populations and the lack of homogeneity in the distribution of water sources put the situation worse in some part of the country (Çakmak and Aküzüm, 2006).
Currently, less than 60% of potential 8.5 million ha of irrigable agricultural land are under irrigation condition in Turkey.And about 90% of these irrigated lands have gravity irrigation systems (Öztürk, 2004).
Performance of irrigation schemes needs to be analyzed to assess the efficiency of the system (Molden and Sakthivadivel, 1999).Studies in different regions of Turkey used multidisciplinary performance indicators such as water delivery, water use efficiency, sustainability of irrigation, environmental and socio-economic aspects and management are required in order to determine the E-mail: selcukozmen@duzce.edu.tr.Tel: +90 380 681 73 12. Fax: +90 380 681 73 13.Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License  performance of the irrigation schemes in all aspects (Akkuzu et al., 2007;Uçar et al., 2010).Mengü and Akkuzu (2010) studied about the effects of the transfer of irrigation management on water and land productivity, and water supply in Gediz Basin in Aegean Sea Region of Turkey.In this study, researchers found out that there was a decline in water supply indicators with a steady increase in the productivity of water.They determined that the reason for this decrease in supply is the long-lasting and ongoing drought in the region.Kukul et al. (2008) assessed the temporal variations of agricultural, water use, environmental and financial performance indicators for the pre transfer (1984 to 1994) and the post transfer (1995 to 2004) periods.They found a considerable increase in output per unit of land and per unit of water after turnover.According to results of this study, the transfer process created more sustainable management for irrigation.Study by Dorsan et al. (2004) in the same basin showed the similar results.Değirmenci et al. (2003) evaluated irrigation system performance for irrigation schemes in Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) region in Turkey.Study showed that an information system for monitoring and evaluation which encompasses all stakeholders should be set up and irrigation scheduling should be designed for efficient and rational irrigation management.
The temporal variations of physical and economic performance were assessed in the irrigation schemes in Thrace region of Turkey by Şener (2012).In this study, it was concluded that the irrigation management transfer program increased the system performance and the schemes have become more self-sufficient under the management of Water User Associations (WUAs).
There is no study previously carried out on irrigation performance evaluation of irrigation schemes in Kastamonu region.Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess water delivery performance, financial performance and productive performance on irrigation schemes using the data acquired from the WUAs in Kastamonu region situated in northern Turkey for the years 2008 to 2012.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this study, WUAs namely Asar, Beyler, Germeçtepe-Kırcılar, Hasköy, Karaçomak and Karadere serving under the twenty-third State Hydraulic Works (SHW) Regional Directorate were assessed (Table 1).The twenty-third SHW Regional Directorate is geographically located in Kastamonu Area in Turkey (Figure 1).Its service area covers the watersheds of İncesu, Şadibey, Karadere, Karaçomak and Daday Stream.Asar Lake is also in this service area.Annual average precipitation during study years in the searched area is about 625 mm (Anonymous, 2013).
Data on irrigation area, irrigated land, water diverted to schemes, irrigation water requirement, cropping pattern, yield and unit prices of the crops grown for the years 2008 to 2012 were taken from evaluation and monitoring reports of the related WUAs (Table 2).The prices of products were converted from Turkish Lira to American Dollars using the Central Bank of Turkish Republic's foreign exchange rate.
In this study, the International Program for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) approach is used for performance evaluation in the irrigation and drainage sector.The comparative analysis of performance indicators used in performance assessment of irrigation schemes are given in Table 3 (Malano and Burton, 2001).Related data for performance evaluation were taken from the records of the SWH 23th Regional Directorate in Kastamonu.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Irrigation ratios of schemes between 2008 and 2012

Name of irrigation
Water resource Irrigation area (ha)

Activity area Performance indicator Data required Water delivery performance
Annual relative water supply Total annual inflow volume to system/Volume of annual crop water requirement

Financial performance
Cost recovery ratio Total revenue collected from water users/Total management, operation and maintenance (MOM) cost Maintenance expenditure to revenue ratio Total maintenance expenditure/Total revenue collected from water users Operational cost per unit area ($ ha -1 ) Total operation expenditure/Total command area serviced by the system Total cost per person employed on water delivery ($/person) Total cost of MOM personnel/Total number of people employed Revenue collection performance Total service revenue collected/Total service revenue due Service area per personnel (ha/person) Total number of MOM staff/Total command area serviced by system

Productive performance
Output per unit command area ($ ha -1 ) Gross value of agricultural production/Total cultivable command area Output per irrigated area ($ ha -1 ) Gross value of agricultural production /Total irrigated crop area Output per unit irrigation supply ($ m -3 ) Gross value of agricultural production/Total inflow volume of water Output per unit water consumed ($ m -3 ) Gross value of agricultural production/Total volume of water consumed by crop according to the records of the SWH in the study area are given in Table 4. Ratios are similar to study reported by Nalbantoğlu and Çakmak (2007) but are not similar to results of works by Yercan et al. (2004) due to regional conditions.
The ratio of maximum relative water supply was about 13 in Asar in 2012 while the minimum ratio of that was 1 in Germeçtepe-Kırcalar in 2009 (Table 5).Most of the results for water supply ratios in this area are higher than previous studies (Kukul et al., 2008).Water was diverted to system as needed when the relative water supply ratio equal to 1.Moreover, water was diverted to system with higher and lower amount for the relative water supply ratio value of higher than 1.0 and lower than 1.0, respectively (Beyribey, 1997).At this point, all values of relative water supply ratio of study equal and higher than 1.There is no problem for water diverted to system for all schemes in this study.The higher water was diverted to Asar scheme in all the schemes.
Cost recovery ratio was maximum in the Karadere irrigation scheme with 136% in 2011, and minimum in the Karaçomak irrigation scheme with 14% in 2008 (Table 6).Data indicated that the total revenue collected from water users were not sufficient to meet the maintenance   operation management costs.However, Beyribey (1997) determined that cost recovery ratios of state irrigation schemes and average of the country were between 21 to 91% and 65%, respectively.The highest and lowest maintenance expenditure to revenue ratios were obtained in the Germeçtepe-Kırcılar irrigation scheme with 75% in 2009 and Karadere irrigation scheme with 7.4% in 2011, respectively (Table 7).Nalbantoğlu and Çakmak (2007) reported maintenance expenditure to revenue ratios between 2.5 and 11%.Their results are lower than those of the current study.However, revenue collected from water users were enough to maintenance costs in the most of schemes between 2008 and 2012 (Table 7).
Concerning the operational cost per unit irrigation area, the highest cost per unit area was obtained from the Karaçomak irrigation scheme with US$ 107 ha -1 in 2008 while the lowest cost was acquired in the Karadere irrigation scheme with US$ 12 ha -1 in 2011 (Table 8).In the study of Çakmak et al. (2010), operational cost per unit irrigation area was between US$ 6.5 ha -1 and US$ 71 ha -1 . Most of schemes in this study have higher values than that of a reported study by Çakmak et al. (2010).However values are similar to the study conducted by Nalbantoğlu and Çakmak (2007).Operational cost per unit irrigation area was higher at the beginning of the study.But in the following years it started to decline, thanks to decreasing of total maintenance operational  management cost for all schemes.
The highest labor cost were determined for Beyler irrigation scheme with 36184 USD per person in 2011 and the lowest value with 1032 USD for Asar scheme in 2011 (Table 9).Labor cost steadily declined from year 2008 to 2012 for all irrigation schemes.
The highest revenue collection performance was estimated for Karadere scheme with the percentage value of 81 in 2011 (Table 10).The lowest figure for the same variable was calculated for Hasköy scheme with a value of 24% in 2011.
Revenue collection performance values are mostly located around 50% in the irrigation schemes between 2008 and 2012 (Table 10).Similar results were reported by Şener et al. (2007) but these revenue collection performances are not sufficient when compared with the study of Yercan et al. (2009).
The highest and the lowest values of service area per personnel were found in Beyler scheme with 5178 ha person -1 in 2011 and Germeçtepe-Kırcalar irrigation scheme with 200 ha person -1 in 2012, respectively (Table 11).Yercan et al. (2009)   stressed that the number of labor for an irrigation scheme should be less than 3 per 1000 ha of irrigated land for an effective management.Therefore, the analysis of the current data implies that more than enough people are employed for most of the schemes (Table 11).This situation can be partly attributed to the extensive open channel system to distribute available water supply to the farmers for all irrigation schemes.The highest and the lowest output per unit of command area were obtained from the Karadere irrigation scheme with US$ 3955 ha -1 and for Beyler irrigation scheme with US$ 446 ha -1 , respectively (Table 12).In the study of Çakmak et al. (2004), output per unit of command area was between US$ 635 and US$ 2636 ha -1 .As similar to these results, the highest output per unit of irrigated area was obtained for Karadere irrigation scheme with US$ 14072 ha -1 while the lowest output of that is for Beyler scheme with US$ 3288 ha -1 (Table 13).Output per unit of irrigated area was calculated between US$ 87 ha -1 and US$ 4678 ha -1 in by Çakmak et al. (2002).Concerning the output per unit of water diverted to the network, Karadere irrigation scheme had the highest value with US$ 2.1 m -3 while Asar irrigation schemes had the lowest value with US$ 0.2 m -3 (Table 14).Merdun (2004) obtained these values between US$ 0.04 m -3 and US$ 0.56 m -3 for his study.The highest outputs per unit of consumed irrigation water was obtained for the Karadere irrigation scheme with US$ 5.2 m -3 , and the lowest for Beyler scheme with US$ 1.2 m -3 as similar to results of Tables 12 and 13.Values for Molden et al. (1998) study were between US$ 0.05 m -3 and US$ 0.62 m -3 . The differences in productivity performance compared with the previous studies were due to the higher total agricultural production in this study.

Conclusion
Results of this study showed that high amount of water was diverted to the most of the irrigation schemes.However, the highest amount of the water from the source was used by Asar scheme.On the other hand, productivity analysis showed the promising performance thanks to higher yield and the type of crop quality for all of the schemes.Regarding financial analysis, total revenue collected from water users were not sufficient to meet the maintenance operational management costs, however, it was generally sufficient to meet maintenance cost for all irrigation schemes.Moreover, operational costs per unit irrigation area and cost per personnel were found higher in the beginning of studied years, than they exhibited a decline up to 2012.Additionally, revenue collection performance results were almost 50% which is not sufficient.Regarding the service area per personnel, it can be explained that all irrigation services have excess employed personnel thanks to distribution network of all irrigation schemes.In conclusion, productivity analysis performed promising but water delivery and financial performance need further studies.
twenty-third SHW of Kastamonu in Turkey for data information support in this study.Furthermore, the author thanks to Dr. Oktay YILDIZ for his help in preparing the manuscript.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Map showing the WUAs location in Kastamonu area in northern Turkey

Table 1 .
Irrigation schemes in the study area.

Table 2 .
Characteristics of evaluated irrigation schemes in Kastamonu area of Turkey.

Table 3 .
Comparative analysis of performance indicators used in the case study and data required.

Table 4 .
Irrigation ratios of WUAs in the study area.
NA: Not available.

Table 5 .
Relative water supply ratios of WUAs in the study area.
NA: Not available.

Table 6 .
Cost recovery ratios of WUAs in the study area.
NA: Not available.

Table 7 .
Maintenance expenditure to revenue ratio values of WUAs in the study area.
NA: Not available.

Table 8 .
Operational cost per unit area of the WUAs in the study area.
NA: Not available.

Table 9 .
Cost per personnel employed in the WUAs.
NA: Not available.

Table 10 .
Revenue collection performance of the WUAs in the study area.
NA: Not available.

Table 11 .
Service area controlled per personnel in the selected WUAs.
NA: Not available.

Table 12 .
Output per unit command area for the year of 2012 in the study area.

Table 13 .
Output per unit irrigated area for the year of 2012 in the study area.

Table 14 .
Output per unit of irrigation supply for the year of 2012 in the study area.

Table 15 .
Output per unit water consumed for the year of 2012 in the study area.