The Benchmarking indicators of IPTRID fall into the category of “external indicators”, and the irrigation assessment also generates a long list of external indicators.
The common attribute of external indicators is that they examine inputs and outputs for a project. External indicators are expressions of various forms of efficiency, whether the efficiency is related to budgets, water, or crop yields. But even more than that, they only require knowledge of inputs and outputs to the project. By themselves, external indicators do not provide any insight into what must be done to improve performance or efficiency. The identification of what actions must be taken to improve these external indicators comes from an examination of internal indicators, which examine the processes and hardware used within the project.
However, external indicators do establish key values – such as whether or not it might be possible to conserve water (without defining how that might be accomplished). As such, low values of external indicators often provide the justification for modernization of projects – with the anticipation that modernization or intervention will improve the values of those external indicators.
The IRRIGATION ASSESSMENT external indicators focus on items of a typical water balance. As such, values such as crop evapotranspiration, effective precipitation, and water supplies must be obtained. The primary purpose of the first three worksheets in the EXCEL spreadsheet is to estimate water-related external indicators.