Abstract
This study was undertaken to investigate the impact of location on productivity of the farmers along an irrigation network in Pakistan. Data were collected from 54 tertiary canals situated along six secondary canals: two each at the head, middle and tail end of the main canal. Results revealed that location of the farms has a significant impact on farmers' productivity on different reaches along all the irrigation channels, i.e. the main canal, the secondary and the tertiary canals. The productivity of the tail‐reach farmers varies from one‐third to one‐half of their head‐ reach counterparts. The overall finding of this study is that location of the water users along the canal irrigation system has a significant impact on their income as well as productivity, and these parameters decrease with increase in distance from the head of the irrigation canals. The reduced canal water supply at the lower reaches of the irrigation system forced these water users to pump more groundwater, resulting in a many times increase in their irrigation costs. Additionally, groundwater quality deteriorates all along the irrigation channels (i.e. along the main canal, the secondary and tertiary canals), compounding the misery of the downstream farmers by degrading productivity of their lands because of increased soil salinity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.