Application of participatory rural appraisal methods for action research on water management

Purpose of the Series The Short Report Series on Locally Managed Irrigation is designed to disseminate concise infor-mation on the role of local management in irrigation and irrigation management transfer or turn-over experiences and policies. The Series is distributed worldwide to a broad range of people-policy makers, planners, researchers, donors, and officials in both public and nongovernmental organizations-who are concerned with the irrigated agriculture sector. IIMI's goal is not to promote policies such as irrigation management transfer, but to enhance the knowledge base available to decision makers and advisors as they face questions of policy adoption and strategies for implementation. Locally managed irrigation can be of many types, such as traditional farmer-constructed diversion or tank schemes, indigenous and often new lift irrigation, government-constructed but farmer-managed irrigation systems, and systems where management is or has been transferred from an outside agency to a local user organization. By "irrigation management transfer " we mean some degree of transfer of responsibility and authority for irrigation management from the government to farmer groups or other nongov