ecessary justification to scale-up public investment and technology deployment nationwide.
While the first two components define the technical opportunity and priorities for replication, the second two components will seek to carry actual replication out on a national scale. The third component supports replication from the bottom up via development of action plans at the regional and district levels across the country, as well as educational outreach and capacity-building among farmers and local water-management personnel. The fourth component will work from the top down, defining and implementing policies, programmes, and investment plans for integrated water management and SLM at the national level.
The need to reduce water losses and associated land salinization from canal infiltration extends across the entire country, at all levels of the water management system, from long-distance distribution to farms. The greatest potential for the project to generate rapid, cost-effective, large-scale results with canal linings lies on the domestic production side, where there are urgent untapped opportunities to update materials, increase output, and raise efficiency. The Ministry of Agriculture and Water Economy of Turkmenistan (MAWE) currently operates three factories – one each in the Akhal, Mary, and Dashoguz velayats. These facilities produce mostly reinforced concrete pipes and plates for canals.
This component will include some investment in needed equipment and facility upgrades. Its main focus, however, will be on technical assistance in formulating the products, preparing production lines, conducting field research and testing, and then planning and implementation of expanded production and installation. The UNDP/GEF project and MAWE will work jointly on field testing and demonstration of all new products.
New canal lining products will be documented with regard to production processes, technical performance, environmental benefits, and cost. Results and analysis will be compiled into a report, including recommendations and cost estimation by national and international experts for the most promising prospects for further investment at all three factories and installation in canals nationwide. This report will be presented to MAWE for consideration as a basis for budget proposals to the Cabinet of Ministers. Approval and implementation of such proposals is a major focus of Component 4.
The UNDP plans to recruit an International Consultant – Hydrological Engineer / Expert in Irrigation Canals to perform the actions outlined below for the EERE Project.
Duties and Responsibilities
In accordance with the above-mentioned objective of the assignment and under the supervision of the Project Manager and Portfolio Manager, the International Consultant (IC) will be tasked to perform the following duties and responsibilities:
- Action One: Read the relevant sections of the project document, reports of international and national consultants, project targets and indicators related to lining of irrigation canals as well as other relevant information provided by the project team. Develop a detailed work plan of the assignment to achieve the project targets for the canal lining.
- Action Two: Taking into account the international experience (with examples from some countries with similar climatic conditions like in Turkmenistan), provide an overview of different lining materials applied in water turbidity conditions varying from 0.5 g/l to 5 g/l.
- Action Three: Using own and/or international experience in the development and use of anti-filtration coatings of irrigation canals, carry out market research to determine the economic efficiency of the application of various types of anti-filtration materials of irrigation canals applicable to the conditions of Turkmenistan. Prepare a detailed list of technical data to be collected and obtained by the local experts on feasibility studies of canal lining options;
- Action Four: Based on data provided by project specialists and national experts including technical parameters of irrigation c