Internal Indicator Section

Worksheets 5 - 12 require a good field visit to the project by qualified evaluators. They focus on how the project actually works - what the instructions are, how water is physically moved throughout the canal/pipeline system, what perceptions and reality are, and other items such as staffing, budgets, and communication. A quick look (Rapid Appraisal) of these items will immediately identify weaknesses and strengths in the project. Action items are virtually always readily apparent after the systematic RAP has been conducted.

At first glance, the large number of pages in worksheets 5-12 appears daunting. However, a close examination of the pages will show that only about 25% of the lines require an answer (the other lines are explanations or blanks), and computations are only necessary for a few items such as budget questions. Furthermore, the questions for the Main Canal are identical to those of the Second Level Canals and the Third Level Canals. Once an evaluator understands the Main Canal questions, the remainder of the pages are easily answered after a field visit.

Worksheet 5. Project Office Questions

Most of the questions in this worksheet should be filled out by the Irrigation Project employees prior to the visit, as this includes many simple data values such as salaries, number of employees, and stated project policies.

However, the evaluator must answer some of the questions during the visit.

This worksheet includes questions that address the possibility of chaos existing in a project. "Chaos" exists when the reality in a project does not match what project authorities believe occurs. Therefore, the evaluator must ask the project authorities what levels of water delivery service the main canal delivers, what various operators do, and how water arrives to individual farmers. These "stated" conditions are later compared against what the evaluator actually observes in the field.

In general, it is easiest to modernize irrigation projects that have a minimum of chaos. If the project authorities are either not aware of actual field conditions, or if they refuse to recognize certain problems, it is then very difficult to make changes.

This worksheet also introduces the concept of assigning a rating of 0-4 to project characteristics, with 0 being the worst rating and 4 being the best. In the majority of cases, the evaluator reads a series of descriptions, and assigns a rating to each of "internal indicators" that are later summarized in worksheet "12. Internal Indicators".

Some indicator values (such as "O&M adequacy") are automatically calculated based on previous answers. The rating scale for those values can be found if one highlights the calculated value and reads the formula in the cell.

This worksheet has some Drainage and Salinity Information questions at the very end. Those are used in various benchmarking indicators.

If there is an "umbrella" Water User Association (WUA), elected by smaller Water User Associations, that manages the project, then that "umbrella" WUA is considered part of the "project office".

Worksheet 6. Project Employees

Most of these questions require a qualitative assessment of conditions in the project, with the evaluator giving a rating of 0-4 for each question. Topics include:

- Adequacy of employee training
- Availability of written performance rules
- Power of employees to make independent decisions
- The ability of the project to fire employees with cause
- Rewards to employees for good work

Worksheet 7. WUA

In the worksheets, the abbreviation WUA stands for "Water User Association". Some irrigation projects have a large WUA that operates the whole project canal system, but the final water distribution is done by many smaller WUA. In such a situation, the WUA questions pertain only to the smaller WUA.

Many of the questions are identical to those used in worksheet 5. Project Office Questions.

The answers must reflect average conditions throughout the whole irrigation project, rather than any single WUA. Therefore, several WUAs must be visited to properly answer the questions.

Worksheet 8. Main Canal

This worksheet begins with 6 questions about general conditions throughout the project. The answers will have a large confidence interval (defined earlier, in the section covering external indicators), but because there are large differences between various projects, the answers are meaningful.

The remainder of the questions are identical to those for the Second Level and Third Level Canals. Most of the questions are self-explanatory, but a few points deserve special explanations

1. Wave travel time. This is the lag time between making a change in flow rate at one point in a canal, and having the change stabilize at another point downstream.
2. Functionality of various structures and instructions. An evaluator must always consider the operations from the point of view of the operator, and ask himself/herself "If I was to walk up to this structure, how would I know what to do and would it be easy to do?". For example, if the objective is to maintain a constant water level with a structure, what does "constant" mean - within 1 centimeter, or within 5 centimeters? And how many times/day would the structure need to be moved, and even with that movement would it be possible to achieve the desired result? And is the structure dangerous or difficult to operate?
   If an operator is told to deliver a flow rate into a canal, yet there is no flow rate measurement device (or the device is inaccurate, improperly maintained, improperly located, or requires significant time to stabilize), then it will be almost impossible to accurately achieve the desired result.
   Therefore, the evaluator must not just listen to explanations. The evaluator must put him/herself into the operator's shoes. It isn't sufficient to know that the operator moves something and then looks at something; the evaluator must understand if those "somethings" do indeed give the proper answer, etc.

The format of the worksheet 8. Main Canal is this:

1. General observations are recorded.
2. Ratings are given to various aspects of operation, maintenance, and process. Some of these ratings depend upon the general observations that are recorded in the same worksheet. Other ratings stand on their own.

It may appear that some of the general observations are not necessary because they are addressed later in the form of ratings. However, they have been included to force the evaluator to make a more systematic examination of various features - which are summarized in later ratings.

The questions about actual SERVICE are key. RAP evaluators must recognize that the RAP has been designed under the assumption that all employees of an irrigation project only have their jobs for one reason - to provide service to customers.

When one analyzes a project by "levels" (office, main canal, second level canal, third level canal, distributaries, field), a huge project can be understood in simple terms. The operators of the main canal only have one objective - everything they do should be done to provide good water delivery service to their customers, the second level canals (and perhaps a few direct turnouts from the main canal). This "service concept" must be understood and accepted by everyone, from the chief engineer to the lowest operator. Once it is accepted, then the system management becomes very simple. Personnel on each level are only responsible for that level's performance.

Main canal operators do not need to understand the details of that day's flow rate requirements on all the individual fields. Of course, in order to subscribe to the service concept, operators generally need to know that their ultimate customer if the farmer. But the details of day-to-day flow rates do not need to be known at all levels.

Rather, the main canal operators have one task to accomplish - to deliver flow rates at specific turnouts (off takes) with a high degree of service. Service is described in RAP with 3 indices:

1. Flexibility, composed of
   - Frequency
   - Flow rate
   - Duration
2. Reliability
3. Equity

For very simple field irrigation techniques, reliability and equity are crucial. Without good reliability and equity, there are generally social problems such as vandalism and non-payment of water fees. Reliability and equity, then, are cornerstones of projects that have good social order.

In order to have efficient field irrigation practices, some minimum level of flexibility is required. Even with the most simple irrigation methods such as paddy rice, the flow rates are completely different at the beginning of the season (for land preparation), compared to when the rice crop is established. And not everyone plants at the same time, meaning that the irrigation project must have some flexibility built into it.

To obtain a high project efficiency, the canal system must have sufficient flexibility built into it to be able to change flows frequently in response to continually changing demands and weather. There is no doubt that most irrigation projects are not very flexible. There is also no doubt that most irrigation projects have low project efficiencies.

Finally, the evaluator must consider that a major purpose of the RAP is to identify what can be done to improve project performance. Modern field irrigation methods, such as sprinkler and drip, require a much higher degree of flexibility and reliability than do traditional surface irrigation methods. The evaluator must always be asking him/herself during the RAP:

"I don't only want to recommend how to rehabilitate the project - I want to recommend steps that will move the project closer to a higher efficiency and better water management as the future will certainly demand. Will these structures and operating instructions and personnel be capable meeting the new requirements, and if not, what adjustments must be made?"

Therefore, the examination of the main canal must be thorough. The evaluator must start at the source, and go all the way to the downstream end of the canal. This is not to say that every single structure must be analyzed. But an evaluator must examine key structures along the complete length of the canal.

Common challenges that must be overcome by the evaluators include:

1. The project authorities want to spend a disproportionate amount of time at the dam, discussing dam maintenance, the watershed, and politics. Actually, the only items of interest at the dam are (a) the storage, and (b) how discharges are computed and actually made and measured.
2. Evaluators will be told, "the canal is all the same". The explicit or implied conclusion is that the evaluator only needs to examine portions of the canals near the headworks. While it may be true that the canal is indeed identical along its complete length, in general there are significant differences in maintenance, slope, structures, etc. along its length. Only by physically traveling along the canal will the evaluator learn about those differences.
3. The operation will be explained by project authorities that are driving with the evaluators. This is definitely a difficult challenge. The office visit (worksheet 5) is designed to obtain the perspective of the office staff and bosses. A purpose of the field visit is to talk to the actual structure operators and review their notes - without having their bosses interrupt and give the "official" answer. In many cases, it is necessary to separate the bosses from the operators, so that the operators are not cautious with the answers they give. Therefore, the "rules of the game" must be understood before the field visit is made.

Another challenge arises in the selection of which canals to visit. Sometimes a project will have 2 or more main canals, and dozens of "second level" canals. The good news is that in general, operator instructions, hardware, and maintenance levels will be similar on all of the canals at a specific level. Visiting more canals is helpful, but it is not necessary to visit all of the canals in a project.

There is no doubt that different main canals each have a few specific engineering/hydraulic challenges. One canal may have a bottleneck (restriction) at a river crossing, and another canal may have a peculiar control problem - even though everything else seems the same. If the RAP evaluator can provide good recommendations for those specific hydraulic problems (that are not covered specifically in the RAP forms), the credibility of the evaluator will be enhanced, and RAP recommendations will have a better chance of being accepted. Therefore, the evaluator should take ample pictures and notes during the visit.

Basic advice for evaluators as they tour the main, second, third, etc. levels of canals is this:

Understand everything. Understand how the operators THINK things should work. Question everything. If you do not understand explanations, continue to question the explanations until you understand the perspective of the operators. But go beyond that. Every structure has a function. Do not be satisfied with attempting to visualize how that function can be accomplished easier or better; question the very reason that the structure has been assigned that function. Perhaps in a modernization plan, a structure that is presently operated under flow rate control should be operated instead under upstream water level control. In other words, question the very nature of the strategies of operation - not just individual structures. The RAP is not an examination of individual structures - it is a comprehensive examination of a whole process…in which structures have functions. One must understand the pieces (operators, rules, structures) to understand the process, but RAP also questions the assumptions behind the specific processes, themselves. RAP requires evaluators who can look beyond the individual pieces; it requires evaluators who can visualize how the pieces can be manipulated and re-arranged as parts of a complete process that provides good service and high efficiency.

Worksheet 9. Second Level Canals

See the discussion for Worksheet 8. Second Level Canals are those that receive water from the Main Canals. In general, the Second Level Canals are operated differently than the Main Canals.

Worksheet 10. Third Level Canals

See the discussion for Worksheet 8. In many medium sized projects, the "Third Level" does not exist, so this worksheet would not be filled out in those cases.

Worksheet 11. Final Deliveries

There are two possible points that are considered in this workshop. One is the Individual Ownership Units - the smallest unit that is owned by a single individual (if private ownership is allowed) or that is managed by a farmer. The Individual Ownership Unit may be larger than a single field if one farmer receives water and then distributes the water over several fields from a single turnout (very common in the USA). The key feature of the Individual Ownership Unit is that at this point, there is no cooperation needed between individual farmers.

The second point is the Point of Management Change. In projects with a high density of turnouts, the Point of Management Change may be the same as the point of Individual Ownership Units. In other words, the irrigation project authority (or the water user association) employee delivers water all the way to the field level. The Point of Management Change is the "hand-off" point between paid employees and volunteers or farmers.

In some projects, the irrigation authorities place great emphasis on the number of farmers within a project. One must go beyond that statistic when examining the present operation, because the project authorities may relinquish control of the water to groups of 200 farmers - who are expected to somehow provide equitable and reliable water distribution among themselves. Therefore, there are 2 important indicators for this discussion:

• The number of fields (Individual Ownership Units) downstream of the Point of Management Change. The greater the number, the poorer is the reliability, equity, and flexibility of water delivery service. Furthermore, any number greater than 1 or 2 indicates that drip and sprinkler irrigation are almost impossible to support.
• The number of turnouts that are operated per employee. This is much more meaningful than the "number of farmers per employee", because employees may never provide water directly to individual farmers.
  

Worksheet 12. Internal Indicators

This worksheet contains 3 types of values:

1. Summaries of the various internal Sub-Indicators that were rated in the previous workshops, and then computed weighted values for each Primary Indicator. The shaded columns on the right hand side provide information about the values, the weighting factors, and the worksheet location for detailed rating criteria of the Sub-Indicators. All of these values are given a rating of 0-4, with 4 being highest and most desirable.
2. Sub-Indicators and Primary Indicators, the values of which are input directly into this worksheet (as opposed to being transferred from previous worksheets). These are Indicators I-32, I-33, and I-34. These values all have a rating of 0-4.
3. A few Indicators (I-35+) that do not conform to the rating scale of 0-4. Rather, these are direct ratios of values or individual values that have special significance.
   

Worksheet 13. IPTRID Indicators

This worksheet is an intermediate worksheet that should not be used. Instead, refer to Worksheet 14, as described below.

Worksheet 14. World Bank BMTI Indicators

This worksheet contains the "Benchmarking Technical Indicators", or BMTI values as of October 2002. The definitions of the various BMTI values are given below:

Water Year described:________________________

WATER BALANCE INDICATORS

FINANCIAL INDICATORS

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY AND ECONOMIC INDICATORS

ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

OTHER PERFORMANCE INDICATORS