| Abstract | The coastal zone is commonly defined as the interface or transition areas between land and sea, including large inland lakes. It provides support in life and economic development opportunities for settlement, where human activities tend to he concentrated, all over the world, including cities, harbors, beach resorts. and also for aquaculture. lquaculture is one of the activities which commonly take place in the coastal areas. In Thailand, shrimp aquaculture has operated along the coast of the Gulf of Thailand for more than 80 years. Currently, marine shrimp farming is confronted with environmental problems due to the deteriorating water quality in the coastal zone. The major cause of water pollution is that the same water body is used for both farming and as the sump for wastewater from the farms. The Royal Thai Government has realized its responsibility to minimize negative impacts of intensive shrimp culture operation. Several solutions have been proposed to sustain the marine shrimp culture industry and protect the environment. The Department of Fisheries has embarked on a program of construction of seawater pumping (SWP) facilities as one of its major initiatives to achieve sustainability of shrimp aquaculture in the coastal zone. The Seawater Irrigation System is the first attempt to prevent environmental degradation resulting from shrimp culture. This system aims to reduce the problems of low water quality, of polluted water in the grow-out ponds and of environmental pollution. For this research, the Ban Nakot SWIP was selected as the studied areas; it is located in Pak Phanang district, Nakhon Sri Thammarat province in the southern part of Thailand. The research was carried out to review the background and the existing situation, and assess the feasibility of seawater irrigation systems operated and managed by a local community. This study is based on both primary and secondary sources of data and information. The secondary data was collected from various sources such as National Economic and Social Development Board, DOF, CPD, and Ban Nakot Seawater Irrigation Project. The primary data was collected through observation, a questionnaire survey', semi-structure interviews and informal discussions, and focus group discussions. All data were analyzed by using both quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. At the time of the study, the Ban Nakot SWIP lacked a suitable seawater irrigation schedule based on the water requirement of the shrimp farmers. In addition, water pumping costs have exceeded the budget provided as the shrimp farmers increased the frequency of water exchange if there was any water in the reservoirs. Therefore, an appropriate irrigation schedule must he constructed. This irrigation schedule should effectively reduce water use, decrease water pumping costs that the shrimp farmers will have to pay by themselves in the future and hence reduce the adverse environmental impact of shrimp farming. When the situation of Ban Nakot SWIP was analyzed, the results of project implementation throughout ; years showed that the constraints were found in two phase of the project: planning and implementation. In the planning phase, there were constraints on stakeholder involvement, participatory planning process and suitable design of project layout. During the implementation phase, there were two main issues i.e. impact from improper planning in phase I and administrative structure and cooperation such as land claims and conflicts in the target areas for SWIP, impracticable loan commitment, balance implementation and budget, frequent changes of project administrators, lack of' sufficient monitoring and evaluation process, low cooperation and participation of local people, cooperation among existing stakeholders. Especially, participation greatly influenced the achievement of the objectives of SWIP. Therefore, the project can not be properly implemented if these issues are not solved. From the investigation of the socio-economic characteristics and perception of' the shrimp farmers, the results show that the shrimp farmers had caused impacts towards the project implementation including participation, group formation, collaboration and coordination, awareness of environmental impacts, and repair and maintenance of common property. The SWIP is a development project that aimed to transfer irrigation management responsibilities from government agencies to farmers after 3 years of project operation. Therefore, a fishery cooperative was chosen to as a local organization that carried out the project development. However, the performance of the cooperative showed that it had neither achieved the objectives nor became the center of' SWIP. It was found that there were several issues that had influenced the accomplishments of the cooperative, such as group establishment, leadership and working groups, and rule and regulation setting and enforcement. All these issues resulted in the failure of the fishery cooperative within the SWIP. Therefore, the proper approach for the SWIP should be a co-management approach that represents a particular partnership between government and Communities. Comanagement requires that communities and government work together to manage their resources. Moreover, SWIP was consistent with the national policies and plans and administrative system. However, only consistency bet een SWIP and related policies and plans was not enough to help the project succeed. Several factors have influence on the success of the projects. The capacity of implementing agencies (DOF) was a significant factor, which included administrative structure, qualification of the project staff, fiscal budget, learning, and implementation strategies. The capacity of local people was also a considerable factor. Their knowledge and understanding of their rights, liberties, roles and duties in use and management of natural resource and environment were important for the success of the project. In the real situation, the majority of local people are still not aware of the potential advantage of a decentralized approach and their responsibility. Therefore, awareness-raising in participation in both environmental conservation and collaborative working with local institutes is essential. Accordingly, the management strategies for Ban Nakot SWIP are proposed to improve SWIP implementation. The strategies consists of 4 main parts i.e. strategies for seawater irrigation system. strategies for eater users (shrimp farmers), secondary stakeholders, and environment. |