Farmer’s Perception about Water Demand and Availability in Koga Irrigation Project Under Climate Change

Irrigation is certainly a means for farmers to adapt to climate variability and change. However, the impact of climate change on irrigated agriculture and possible options to deal with it still deserves more research. We therefore assessed farmer‟s perception on climate change and its impact on current and future water management in the Koga irrigation scheme in Lake Tana sub-basin, source of upper Blue Nile River. Farmers in Koga who used to entirely rely on rain fed agriculture stated that the major benefits of the scheme are multiple cropping, increased productions and profits, savings, children‟s school enrollment and in general better livelihoods. Despite these observed benefits more than half of the respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the current water allocation.  Farmers are concerned that climate variability and change might exasperate the current water allocation issues. For example, hail strom was cited as one of the major climate stress in the region by 60% of respondent. Seven out of ten respondents felt a change in rainfall pattern (onset and variability) in the past 20 years.Slightly less than half of the farmers believe that temperature has increased over the past two decades. More than half of the farmers anticipate future water shortages due to climate change and sedimentation. Almost all of the respondents do not use other water sources during times of water shortage. The main reasons for not using additional source of water are long distance from river water, and long distance between existing hand dug groundwater wells and cultivated lands. About 38%, 12% and 12% of the respondents suggest respectively digging groundwater wells, rainwater harvesting and improved governance as better strategies to deal with future water shortage. Measures that will solve existing water allocation problems and enable farmers to better deal with the anticipated future water shortages will increase the resilience of the scheme.