The Limits of Participatory Irrigation Management: Using Remote Sensing to Evaluate Agricultural Policy Impact

Does the transition toward participatory management approaches improve access to irrigation water and lead to greater crop production for farmers? This paper answers this question using the case of the Jordan Valley, where local Water User Associations were established as an experiment in participatory resource management. We use remote sensing techniques to gather data on vegetation density and water content between the years of 2000 and 2018 to evaluate the success of these institutions in tackling existing challenges that limit the supply of water to farmers. Using farm-level NDVI and NDWI estimates as indicators of water access, we find that the WUA policy intervention had little-to-no distinct effect on water supply at the farm level.