Overseas Perspectives for Managing Irrigation Drainage in California

Abstract

International perspectives on irrigation organization provide new and useful ways of looking at old and increasingly difficult problems of drainage management in the United States. One particularly intractable issue at the state and federal levels is how to better manage irrigation‐induced water quality problems in California's San Joaquin Valley. Several recent and important studies recommend that irrigation and drainage responsibilities be consolidated at the district or regional level in order to more effectively address drainage management problems there. Another report, in contrast, suggests an autonomous, statewide drainage agency be established to handle these problems, leaving irrigation responsibilities to existing agencies. Analytic frameworks developed overseas identify a variety of organizational and institutional arrangements for better dealing with water quality problems, one of which is the creation of systemwide drainage authorities. A major implication of such analytic frarmeworks is that drainage and irrigation engineers must become much more publicly involved in designing improved organizational—not just technical—mechanisms for drainage treatment and disposal, both in the Valley and in California as a whole.