Project for Development of National Standard Design Documents of Irrigation and Drainage Launched

The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology (MOWRAM) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have signed a Record of Discussion to officially launch a new technical cooperation project for “Development of National Standard Design Documents for Irrigation and Drainage”.

H.E. Bun Hean, Secretary of State at MOWRAM, and Ms. Kamei Haruko, Chief Representative of JICA Cambodia Office, were the signatories.

The project is scheduled to commence from the 2nd quarter of 2022, underlined a joint press release issued yesterday.

According to the same source, the significant achievement in enabling increase of agricultural production through provision of irrigation scheme has been witnessed over the past year. However, the demand for stable and sufficient irrigation water has become even more imminent when the agriculture is the basic livelihood for many in the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Modernisation of agriculture needs to be promoted for which stable and efficient irrigation water bolds a crucial role.

MOWRAM Strategic Development Plan 2019-2023 sets the priorities on the increase of capacity of existing irrigation systems to expand the irrigable area to reach 1,952 thousand ha in 2023. However, the national standard for design of irrigation and drainage does not exist and the upskilling of MOWRAM/PDWRAM staff is required in order to effectively implement the action plan with quality design and appropriate costing.

In this context, the project will develop standard design documents for two facilities, i.e., headworks, and open canals and related structures with reference to standard design criteria in Japan. The standard design criteria and standard design manuals will be made for general-purpose of planning and designing work for small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale irrigation systems.

The standard design documents are expected to contribute to upskilling of MOWRAM/PDWRAM staff through saving construction materials, reducing production cost of the design, ensuring compatibility of the design among projects, rationalisation of production, preservation, universalisation and improvement of technology, support technical level of local engineers and contractors, budget planning and procurement for rehabilitation of the irrigation and drainage scheme, etc.

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press