This project officially commenced in January 2008. However, because of the changes in management due to the departure of some key personnel, the project activities effectively commenced from October 1 2008. Therefore, the Project Leader from Charles Sturt University (CSU) requested timeline variation for Project Agreement from ACIAR and the new mutually agreed project completion date is December 31, 2012. This variation caused some delays, but the project team in Australia and PC has worked intensively and as a result the project remains on track in terms of its overall activities and achievement of the milestones in the first eight months for year-1, as reported in this document.
The project builds on the strong track record of different federal and provincial organizations in participatory irrigation management, particularly, the current initiatives by Government of Punjab through Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA), Punjab-Pakistan, who is working closely with the Farmer organisations (FO) under the ongoing institutional reforms in the command area of Lower Chenab Canal (LCC) in Pakistan. This project thus link to different federal and provincial organizations responsible for irrigation management, and the extension services for participatory demonstration, evaluation and exploration of adoption pathways regarding promising on-farm water saving technologies already developed (e.g. laser-levelling; raised beds; zero-till planting etc.) elsewhere by the project team.
This project will develop and use, for the first time in the history of canal and groundwater management in Pakistan, the hydrologic-economic modelling tools capable of scenario analysis of water distribution as a function of crop-groundwater-soil mix at farm and "distributary" and "minor" canal levels both in the LCC and Coleambally Irrigation Area (CIA). More importantly, the project will couple Remote Sensing tools and hydrological data with socioeconomic data for developing the surface and ground water supply and demand management options at various spatial scales, for tailoring water sectors adaptations to climate change.
Currently PIDA is involved with 85 FOs for demonstrating improved irrigation practices in the LCC. In some areas of LCC groundwater is fresh and can be used for irrigation by the farmers, while in some other areas especially in the tail reaches of the irrigation system, the groundwater is saline and unsuitable for irrigation. Conjunctive use of surface and groundwater is common in areas with good quality groundwater. The tail-end and farmers often get less water due to inequity in access to surface water; they also have poor quality groundwater, such that the use of poor quality groundwater alone for irrigation reduces crop yield and production, causes salinity and thus have serious socioeconomic and environmental implications. These farmers need scientific information for "conjunctive use" of surface and groundwater for optimising their productivity and returns to limited land and water resources.
This project will deliver decision making tools to PIDA for rationalising surface water allocation. PIDA will also benefit from capacity building and training activities of the project. As PIDA is the key agency responsible for the implementation of water policy and the allocation of surface water resources in the study area, the scientific insights of this project will enable PIDA to improve its decision making regarding the "conjunctive management" of surface and groundwater resources. This will have major implications. For instance, reallocation of more surface water to tail-end areas with saline groundwater will improve agricultural productivity, enhance food security, and will have favourable economic, social and environmental impacts. What is needed is strong political will and commitment. This project will create new scientific knowledge and empower PIDA and FOs for more rational management and use of water resources.

The project activities for the period of report from Jun 1 2009 - May 31 2010 are given in this report. The project builds on the strong track record of federal and provincial organizations in participatory irrigation management, in particular the current initiatives by the Government of Punjab through Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA), Punjab-Pakistan, is working closely with the Farmer Organisations (FO) under the ongoing institutional reforms in the command area of Lower Chenab Canal (LCC). This project thus links to federal and provincial organizations responsible for irrigation management, and the extension services for participatory demonstration, evaluation and exploration of adoption pathways regarding promising on-farm water saving technologies already developed (e.g. laser-levelling; raised beds; zero-till planting etc.) elsewhere by the project team.
This project will develop and use, for the first time in the history of canal and groundwater management in Pakistan, hydrologic-economic modelling tools capable of scenario analysis of water distribution as a function of crop-groundwater-soil mix at farm and "distributary" and "minor" canal levels both in the LCC, and the Coleambally Irrigation Area (CIA). More importantly, the project will couple Remote Sensing tools and hydrological data with socioeconomic data for developing the surface and ground water supply and demand management options at various spatial scales, for tailoring the water sector's adaptations to climate change.
Currently PIDA is involved with 85 FOs for demonstrating improved irrigation practices in the LCC. The tail-end farmers often get less water due to inequity in access to surface water; they also have poor quality groundwater, such that the use of poor quality groundwater alone for irrigation reduces crop yield and production, causes salinity and thus has serious socioeconomic and environmental implications. These farmers need scientific information for "conjunctive use" of surface and groundwater for optimising their productivity and returns to limited land and water resources.
In order to get new and reliable hydrological data the project team has installed 54 new piezometers, 3 soil moisture probes and an automatic weather station at selected locations within the distributaries in LCC. Other hydrological parameters have been collected on an ongoing basis and are being processed in LCC. PIDA staff have recently calibrated the gauges and accurate flow data will be made available to the project team. Historical data on canal flows across the LCC system have also been collected. These data will be used for the development of surface and ground water models using MODFLOW. In September 2009, the project team carried out an extensive ground truthing campaigns over two weeks to get information about land use and land cover classification in LCC.
During December-January 2010, the project team launched a major campaign for data collection under the socio-economic component of the project. Two-week training was provided to 16 project team members from Pakistan on field data collection, and one-week training to another eight team members on data entry, coding and de-coding, data management, and panel data protocols and analysis. The socio-economic component of the project will collect panel data from 720 households through a structured questionnaire. Each household will be visited twice a year over the course of the project to generate 8-spells of comparable data to be collected in the same format, allowing robust analysis and scenario planning. This data module 8 includes: Basic Information Module; Infrastructure Module; Agricultural Production Module; Expenditure Module; Credit Module; Groundwater and Energy Module; Retrospective Questions Module; and Climate Change and Poverty Module.
This data also covers access to groundwater; community perspectives on climate change; socioeconomic drivers impacting food security and poverty; focus group interviews and workshops with key stakeholders across the four provinces of Pakistan.
Professor I A Khan, Vice Chancellor, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad - Pakistan awarded certificates of participation among the trainees at the completion of the training.
The Annual project workshop was held on January 11, 2010 and was inaugurated by Professor I Khan, Vice Chancellor, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad - Pakistan. Australian and PC project teams gave detailed presentations on ACIAR project activities for 2009 in Australia and Pakistan. About 60 key stakeholders participated in the workshop. The ACIAR project has thus been instrumental in mobilising resources and high-level stakeholder networking and engagement.

The project activities from June 1, 2010 - May 31, 2011 are given in this report. The project builds on the strong track record of different federal and provincial organizations in participatory irrigation management, particularly, the current initiatives by the Government of Punjab through Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA), Punjab-Pakistan. PIDA is working closely with the Farmer Organisations (FOs) under the ongoing institutional reforms in the command area of Lower Chenab Canal (LCC) in Pakistan. This project thus link to different federal and provincial organizations responsible for irrigation management, and the extension services for participatory demonstration, evaluation and exploration of adoption pathways regarding promising on-farm water saving technologies already developed (e.g. laser-levelling; raised beds; zero-till planting etc.) elsewhere by the project team.
This project will develop and use, for the first time in the history of canal and groundwater management in Pakistan, the hydrologic-economic modelling tools capable of scenario analysis of water distribution as a function of crop-groundwater-soil mix at farm and "distributary" and "minor" canal levels both in the LCC and Coleambally Irrigation Area (CIA), Australia. More importantly, the project will couple Remote Sensing and hydrological data with socioeconomic data for developing the surface and ground water supply and demand management options at various spatial scales, for tailoring water sectors adaptations to climate change.
As per project proposal, three distributaries (one each in head "Bhalak", middle "Tarkhani", and tail reach "Khikhi") have been selected in the LCC East system where other major research and development initiative relevant to water management is already in progress. In order to get new and reliable hydrological data, the project team has installed 54 new piezometers, 3 soil moisture probes (provided by CSU team) and an automatic weather station at selective locations within the distributaries in the LCC. Other hydrological parameters including water quality and groundwater extraction has been collected on fortnightly basis at selective distributaries in the LCC and is being processed by partner country (PC) team. PIDA staff is involved in continuous calibration of the gauges at critical canal water delivery points to ensure accurate flow data availability to the project team. Historical data on canal flows across the LCC system have also been collected. This data is being used for water accounting analysis at selective distributaries and for the development of regional surface and groundwater interaction model using MODFLOW. In May 2011, the project team has carried out an extensive ground truthing campaign over two weeks to get information about land use and land cover classification. The project team has developed spatio-temporal maps of actual evapotranspiration and soil moisture using remote sensing based energy balance model for selective distributaries and minor canal levels in the LCC.
The project team has analysed the collected (December 2009-January 2010) socio-economic data of the project distributaries in the LCC system. A multistage stratified random sampling method was used to select a sample of watercourses within the study area. Data about the socio-economic aspects was collected through a structured questionnaire by trained and qualified field enumerators from the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF). The sample included 2 watercourses in the head, middle, and tail sections each of the 3 distributaries covering both the left and right side, giving a total of 18 watercourses. A total of 265 respondents in 21 villages were interviewed. The data collection modules included household basic information, agricultural production, agricultural practices, income and expenditure, groundwater, energy and climate change. The results of the survey are included in a separate technical report on socio-economic component of the project.
The CSU team has developed a database of irrigated crops, water distribution, ground water uses, aquifer characteristics, and cropping pattern for the CIA. The project team is continuously collecting data including hydrological, meteorological and flux tower for spatial water accounting analysis and irrigation demand forecasting at system level and sub-system level in the CIA. The developed database was used for irrigation demand forecasting and spatial water accounting analysis in the CIA. The project team has completed remote sensing modelling to develop spatio-temporal maps of land use and land cover classes, actual evapotranspiration and soil moisture at sub-systems and system levels for 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. In addition, GIS analysis was used to develop ground water use and level maps for the same years in the CIA. Water accounting analysis has already been completed at selective farms, sub-systems and system level in the CIA for 2008-09 and 2009-10.
The CSU and PC project teams also conducted field visits on 30-31 May 2011 in the LCC system and held extensive discussions with members of FOs and farmers in the command area of Bhalak, Tarkhani and Khikhi distributaries to have a better understanding of the major issues and to devise a suitable strategy for addressing the issues falling within the scope of the project. The third Annual project workshop was held on 01 June 2011 at UAF, Pakistan. Around 70 key stakeholders participated in the workshop including technical experts, CSU team, PC project team, irrigation and agriculture departments, farmers and members of FOs from the study area. The CSU and PC project team gave detailed presentations on ACIAR project activities during 2010-11 in Australia and Pakistan. The workshop also included three focus groups discussion namely surface and groundwater modelling, functioning of FOs and their role in Irrigation Management Transfer, and irrigation policy issues. The focus groups provided practical suggestions and way forward to address major issues affecting FOs performance in successful operation and maintenance of secondary canals under Irrigation Management Transfer agreement with PIDA.
The ACIAR project has thus been instrumental in mobilising resources and high-level stakeholder networking and engagement.