The small-scale irrigation in México: Characterization of supply source and size

Abstract

Small irrigation (SI) has been fundamental in the Mexico’s agricultural development. They were born as traditional self-governing irrigation organizations, but state intervention reconfigured their self-managed base to re-group them as Irrigation Units (IU). The objective of the work is to characterize the typology of UR and analyze their problems in terms of over-exploitation of the water supply. Unlike the Irrigation Districts (ID), the SI are self-managed and groundwater supplied and have been marginalized from the state, so the documentary information, agricultural statistics and inventory of the IU are limited. There is a great differentiation among IU according to their water supply and localization. The IU are very dispersed and with a single-user supplied by groundwater with low water solidarity, which it makes difficult to study, monitor and support them.