This thesis contains nine major chapters investigating the attempts undertaken over the past 20 years in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan, to develop and introduce modern irrigation water delivery services in large-scale government run irrigation systems. The second chapter presents a historical analysis of the development of the large scale canal irrigation systems in the Indus basin during British colonial time. The analysis focuses on how the concept of protective irrigation was developed and refined over time by the irrigation authorities. The next chapter discusses the era after independence of Pakistan till the start of the modernization programme in NWFP around 1980. It focuses on the changing scenarios of irrigation management and development in the Indus basin, that has resulted from substantial changes in its institutional and political context. Several case studies are presented in the next chapters: design and implementation of a responsive water supply services in the Mardan-SCARP (Salinity Control and Reclamation Project) project (Chapter 4); the adaption of water management strategies in the newly remodelled Lower SWAT canal (Chapter 5); the application of crop-based irrigation operation for the project in Chasma Right Bank Canal (Chapter 6); and the Swabi-SCARP and Pehur High Level Canal (PHLC) projects that foresee new irrigation developments in the Peshawar Vale, making the use of the water share still available to NWFP after the Indus Water Appointment Act (Chapter 7). The next chapter presents an epilogue to the modernization programme, with the institutional reform programme for the irrigation sector in Pakistan, that was initiated in 1994 and finally got underway in 1999/2000. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn in chapter nine on the function of engineering and designed physical systems in the wider system of irrigation water management.
