Water pricing activities of Irrigation Districts in Turkey are parallel to that of other organizations. The specific aspects for water pricing in Irrigation Districts can be gathered under the following topics:

1. The expenditures of that year to be determined by an estimated budget before the irrigation season.

2. The application of the tariff according to defined conditions to be based on qualifications of the scheme (under the responsibility of each organization) and region.

3. Making the collection in the same year and deterrence of applied penalties to recover charges, which can not be collected.

Water user organizations have to work with a balanced budget from the standpoint of revenues and expenditures. Therefore they have to determine expenditures of that year for the scheme under their responsibility and form a budget to recover these expenditures. Each association determines its own expenditure budget, which includes all kinds of expenditures necessary for maintenance of schemes and for irrigation management at the beginning of the fiscal year. In this budget, investments for irrigation schemes (machinery, equipment, and construction of new schemes, renewing of schemes) are also included. However, the capital investment cost is not included in O &

M charges. Each association determines its would-be irrigable area and crop types using water user information forms and many other methods. Tariff studies prepared using estimated budget and potential irrigation figures, show differences among the water users organizations. Each association uses different methods depending on qualifications of its own scheme and region. These methods can be cited as follows:

Area based

a) Crop based (TL/da) (TL is Turkish Lira)

b) Fixed charge (TL/da)

c) Crop based depending on irrigation times (TL/da)

d) Fixed charge depending on irrigation times (TL/da)

Volumetric

a) Based on water amount consumed (TL/m3)

b) Based on water consumed hourly (TL/m3)

Water Users Organizations use mostly the “area and crop based� tariff method. This type is used mostly in gravity irrigation schemes. In pumped irrigation schemes, the volumetric method is used.

Factors which are taken into account when water user organizations choose a tariff method are:

• method should be easy and practical

• lack of data for calculations

• water charge per unit area is intended to be low.

For more details see the Turkey Country Report 2003