Using spatial information systems to improve water management in Mexico

In the last two decades, Mexican irrigated agriculture has faced large changes as a result of recurrent droughts and the transfer of irrigation management from the federal government to Water User Associations (WUA). The associations face a great challenge in the efficient operation of water distribution networks and use of water. Under water scarcity conditions, new irrigation management strategies must be implemented to estimate irrigation requirements at field scale and integrate them into several operating levels of the irrigation network. A computer tool, Spriter, was developed and transferred to several WUA of Mexican irrigation districts. The system allows the dynamic generation of digital map reports, as mapping of physical features of fields is linked to the main database. Software applications are presented to illustrate the advantages of using spatial information technologies to improve water management in large irrigation districts.