The impacts of rural land consolidation on the utilization behaviors of irrigation infrastructure

The supply of irrigation infrastructure is mainly featured with the instrumental rationality of rural land consolidation (RLC) and the utilization behavior of irrigation infrastructure is one vital part of the supply mechanism study. Applying the Williamson Paradigm, this paper analyzed the impacts of RLC on the utilization behaviors, and this paper also conducted a case study of Zhongxiang and Tuanfeng, Hubei by the Logistics models. Results show that, 44.6% of the surveyed farmers chose cooperatives as their irrigation organizations, 90.3% of them chose canal water as their water resources, and 67.7% admitted that the utilization behaviors were improved after RLC. The coefficients of pumping station, canal, pool, water delivery time-consuming, conflict resolution and irrigation time are significant, indicating that the physical and geographical specificity, uncertainty, transaction frequency are significant to the utilization behaviors, as well as the validation of the analysis paradigm. In addition, after parts of control variables and explaining variables being replaced, the estimation results are still robust. The placebo test also supports the baseline econometrical model. In summary, this paper suggests that the supply of pumping station, canal and pool should be promoted and both the uncertainty of the utilization behaviors and the equality of resource access need more attention.