Factors Affecting Non-farmers' Participation in Maintenance of Irrigation and Drainage Canals

Irrigation and drainage canals serve not only as agricultural infrastructure for paddy fields but can also contribute to society in other ways, for example, in the reduction of damage caused by heavy rains. In recent decades, the decrease of farmers and the increase of non-farmers in suburban areas have made it difficult for rural communities to maintain the canals properly. Therefore, there is growing awareness that in order to deal with this problem it is necessary to ask for newly participation in the canal maintenance by non-farmers. This study aimed to clarify the factors affecting residents' participation in the maintenance of the canals. The survey by questionnaire was conducted on 2990 residents in Fukusaki town, Hyogo Prefecture (valid responses: 1109). The independent variables were composed of not only the residents' attributes and consciousness and the regional characteristics, but also the styles of the irrigation water management and the canal maintenance (the latter of which have seldom been taken into account in previous studies). The dependent variable was the rate of the residents' participation in the canal maintenance conducted by the community. From the results of factor analysis and stepwise multiple regression analysis, it was revealed that the presence of large-scale farmlands (a regional characteristic) was the variable that had the strongest effect on the residents' participation in the canal maintenance and the specialized irrigation water management was the second. Although, it is difficult to alter the regional characteristics, we can easily modify the styles of the irrigation water management and the canal maintenance. Therefore, the improvement of the styles will be practicable option to encourage non-farmers to participate in the canal maintenance.