Digital transparency and irrigation service quality under water scarcity: a case study in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

This study assesses whether low-cost digital transparency can improve irrigation service quality under seasonal water scarcity. At Tan Thanh Agricultural Cooperative, Tay Ninh Province, Vietnam, a ‘digital coordination package’ was applied to one secondary canal, consisting of public disclosure of irrigation schedules through Zalo and a focal point for reporting and resolving disruptions. A comparable adjacent canal served as the control. Based on a balanced panel of 150 households surveyed before and after the intervention (300 household-period observations), the study applies a Difference-in-Differences framework. The outcome is an Irrigation Service Quality Index on a 0–100 scale, built from timeliness, transparency, responsiveness, and perceived distributional equity. Results show negligible baseline differences but substantial post-intervention divergence. Household fixed-effects estimates indicate that the intervention was associated with a 19.08-point increase in service quality (p < 0.01). Because treatment is assigned to a single canal per arm, this estimate should be interpreted as indicative rather than a definitively identified causal effect, as canal-specific shocks cannot be fully excluded. The finding holds across PCA-based indexing, first-difference estimation, and ANCOVA with baseline controls. Overall, digital transparency improved predictability, accountability, and information symmetry, although one cropping season is insufficient to confirm the elimination of head-end advantages.