Evaluation and Optimization of Handeel as Public Water Canals on Banjarese Traditional Tidal Paddy Rice Field System

Abstract

Handeel is a Banjarese local term for public water canals, which actually came from dutch language “andeel”, means a straight line canal made by a group of people/society/village community, had a function in delivering water from rivers to a paddy field. The system has established since the era of Dutch colonialization, then treated and modernized by Indonesian government during 1970’s. Unfortunately, even though the system has implemented for 40 years, the current development of this tidal irrigation system were stack or rise very slowly. Since then it is necessary to evaluate the base characteristics of the existing canal system, ie. Hydraulic capacity, tidal paddy field type, hydrotopography, and probability for implementing advanced methodology in farming system. After the basic problem found, then continued with the optimization on existing handeel to improve the best benefit for farmers. The study area covers about 20 Handeels as secondary/tertiary canal system in Anjir-Tamban Primary System which supply water distribution to 3000 hectares paddy fields. The study gives the information about the lack of important water structures (levees, folders, control boxes, culverts, etc.) as the main cause of Handeel's problem. The second problem is about the soil property which still poor even though the land has already washed and leached from the poisonous matter such as sulfate acid with tidal movement through the paddy field. And the third is caused by poor water management as excess from the first reason.