George Kimathi Kobia

Community Based Water Management: Practical Lessons from Timau Wua: Water Management Through Water User Associations George Kimathi Kobia

Water User?s Association (WUA) is a group of farmers, all served by a common source of water, join together to allocate, distribute, and manage water, The aim of establishing Water Users' Associations (WUA) was to develop a participatory irrigation management concept for increasing water use efficiency through the involvement of all stakeholders as much as possible in the various management activities. WUA allows farmers to perform activities that are more difficult or impossible to do individually. The creation of water users associations is justified by the participatory approach in water management to allow farmers to efficiently concentrate their efforts and means for joint actions aimed at the optimum utilization of water resources on irrigated and reclaimed lands. The purpose of involving a water user association in improving water resources management is not only to increase supply of irrigation water to farmers? fields but also improve the quality of irrigation management practiced by farmers. Physical improvement when accompanied by improved irrigation management lead to improved irrigation efficiency, farming practice changes and increased economic benefits.