Research contribution to the World Water Vision

Water management / Groundwater / Water scarcity / Water storage / Water supply / Water demand / Productivity / Poverty / Gender / Forecasting

First quarter progress report. Kirindi Oya Irrigation and Settlement Project: Project impact evaluation study

Irrigation managementLand managementSettlementCrop productionForestryEnvironmentCost benefit analysisSocial aspectsEconomic aspectsEvaluationOperationsMaintenanceLivestockInstitution buildingAgriculture

Training for irrigation management in Sri Lanka: An appraisal of current activities and suggestions for their enhancement - Main report

Irrigation management / Institutions / Training / Project appraisal / Sri Lanka

Transfer of management authority in Nepali irrigation systems - Annual progress report: September 1997 - August 1998

Irrigation management / Privatization / Planning / Performance evaluation / Farmers' attitudes / Conjunctive use / Nepal

Estimating global climate change impacts on hydropower projects : applications in India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam

The world is faced with considerable risk and uncertainty about climate change. Particular attention has been paid increasingly to hydropower generation in recent years because it is renewable energy. However, hydropower is among the most vulnerable industries to changes in global and regional climate. This paper aims to examine the possibility of applying a simple vector autoregressive model to forecast future hydrological series and evaluate the resulting impact on hydropower projects. Three projects are considered - in India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. The results are still tentative in terms of both methodology and implications; but the analysis shows that the calibrated dynamic forecasts of hydrological series are much different from the conventional reference points in the 90 percent dependable year. The paper also finds that hydrological discharges tend to increase with rainfall and decrease with temperature. The rainy season would likely have higher water levels, but in the lean season water resources would become even more limited. The amount of energy generated would be affected to a certain extent, but the project viability may not change so much. Comparing the three cases, it is suggested that having larger installed capacity and some storage capacity might be useful to accommodate future hydrological series and seasonality. A broader assessment will be called for at the project preparation stage.Climate Change,Hydro Power,Energy Production and Transportation,Water and Energy,Global Environment Facility

Irrigation system performance in farmer managed irrigation systems in Hunza-Gojal - Final report submitted to Aga Khan Foundation

Performance evaluation / Irrigation systems / Farmer managed irrigation systems / Pakistan / Gilgit

Effects of improving infrastructure quality on business costs : evidence from firm-level data

Economic development is affected by infrastructure services in both volume and quality terms. However, the quality of infrastructure is relatively difficult to measure and assess. The current paper, using firm-level data collected by a business environment assessment survey in 26 countries in Europe and Central Asia, estimates the marginal impacts on firm costs of infrastructure quality. The results suggest that the reliability or continuity of services is important for business performance. Firm costs significantly increase when electricity outages occur more frequently and theaverage outage duration becomes longer. Similarly, increased hours of water supply suspensions also reduce firms'competitiveness. In these countries, it is found that the total benefit for the economy from eliminating the existing electricity outages ranges from 0.5 to 6 percent of gross domestic product. If all water suspensions are removed, the economy could receive a gain of about 0.5 to 2 percent of gross domestic product. By contrast, the quality of telecommunications services seems to have no significant impact.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Infrastructure Economics,Urban Slums Upgrading

Efficiency in the Pakistani Banking Industry: Empirical Evidence after the Structural Reform in the Late 1990s

This article examines the change in technical (in)efficiency of the Pakistani banking industry after the structural reform started in the late 1990s. With international assistance, the Pakistani government has undertaken the restructuring and preparation for privatisation of national commercial and development banks, of which the main goal is the improvement of the efficiency in financial markets. Despite the small sample size, the estimated stochastic production frontier indicates that employees are statistically productive, but capital in terms of branch network is not productive. This is an example counter to the common view that in a less developed banking industry, employees are too often idle and are not productive at all. It is also shown that the efficiency performance of the structural adjustment programmes is in marked contrast among banks. Some banks are found to have improved their technical efficiency during the reform period, while the efficiency improvement of others was ambiguous.

Proceedings of the workshop on selected irrigation management issues, Digana Village, Sri Lanka, 15-19 July 1985

Irrigation managementEvaluationRehabilitationWater distributionFarmers' associationsSocial aspectsInstitutional constraintsCanals

Completed impact assessment questionnaires on Technical Assistance grants to IIMI funded by the Asian Development Bank 1985-89

EvaluationAidIrrigationCropsDiversificationFinancing