THE RAPID APPRAISAL PROCESS
The RAP can be described as follows:
The Rapid Appraisal Process (RAP) for irrigation projects is a 2 week process of collection and analysis of data both in the office and in the
field. The process examines external inputs such as water supplies, and outputs such as water destinations (crop evapotranspiration, surface
runoff, etc.). It provides a systematic examination of the hardware and processes used to convey and distribute water internally to all levels
within the project (from the source to the fields). External indicators and internal indicators are developed to provide (i) a baseline of
information for comparison against future performance after modernization, (ii) benchmarking for comparison against other irrigation
projects, and (iii) a basis for making specific recommendations for modernization and improvement of water delivery service.
The RAP has only recently been used for diagnosis of international irrigation projects, although variations of the
RAP presented here have been used since 1989 by the Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) at
California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) on dozens of irrigation modernization projects throughout the
western USA.
Traditional diagnostic procedures and research tend to examine portions of a project, whether they are the
development of water user associations (WUAs) or the fluctuation of flow rates in a single canal. Those research
projects typically require the collection of substantial field data over extended periods of time.
The time and budgetary requirements of such standard research procedures are significant—Kloezen and
Garce´s-Restrepo (1998) state that ‘‘three engineers worked full-time for more than a year to collect primary data
and make measurements to apply process indicators at the level of selected canals and fields’’ for just one project.
Furthermore, they state: ‘‘In addition, the work in Salvatierra was supported by a Masters of Science student. . . . In
addition, much time was spent on visiting the selected field and taking several flow measurements per field, per
irrigation. Five more months were spent on entering, cleaning, and processing data.’’
Although time-consuming research can provide valuable information about irrigation, decisions for modernization
improvements must be made more quickly and must be comprehensive. Benchmarking, as discussed in this
paper, does not require extensive fieldwork. The internal process information needed for the RAP requires only a
few days of fieldwork.
An essential ingredient of the successful application of these RAPs is adequate training of the evaluators.
Experience has shown that successful RAP programs require: (i) evaluators with prior training in irrigation, (ii)
specific training in the RAP techniques, and (iii) follow-up support and critique when the evaluators begin their
fieldwork.
Typical baseline data for external indicators (such as water balances and irrigation efficiency) are either readily
available or they are not for a project. Individual irrigation projects have differences in the ease of access to typical