Abstract
The Kanto district suffered from a record rainfall in 1987. As the storage volume of the dams at upper reaches of the Tone River basin rapidly decreased, water intake from the Tone River and the other rivers were restricted. For these reasons, farmers and the staff of the land improvement districts were forced to use great deal of labor for regulation of water use with a great amount of money being spent for drought countermeasures.
Therefore, the definition of drought must be considered from the viewpoint of not only decreasing rice crops but also increasing labor and costs for drought countermeasures.
This paper deals with drought damage and irrigation water management for drought periods in the A river basin of the Kanto district. The actual state of the drought was clarified by questionnaire reseach and an analysis of it.
The following conclusions, as factors of drought damage valuation, were obtained through this investigation.
1) A delay in scheduled puddling. The scheduled puddling was delayed from 5 to 8 days on the average. Therefore, some farmers replanted rice seeds and controlled the growth of the rice plants.
2) Decrease in the rice crop harvest. Ten percent of the farmers suffered a reduction by a few percent compared with last year's crop.
3) Increase in meetings for regulation of water use. Special meetings for drought countermeasures were held 3 to 6 times.
4) Cost for drought countermeasures. The costs for drought countermeasures consisted of purchasing pumps, digging wells, fuel charges and labor costs. Seventy to eighty percent of the farmers were forced to spend more money.
5) Increase in labor for water management of paddy fields. Due to frequent patrolling of the paddy fields during the puddling period, labor for water management increased and so to 70 percent had to work twice as hard compared with the past year.
