OC-11.5: Economic Water productivity (Basic)

Owned by Enrico Bonaiuti
May 05, 2020
2 min read

Definition: This indicator is designed to measure the economic value of production, measured against the total volume of of water supplied for production purposes.

Unit of Measure: USD per cubic metre (USD/ m3)

Disaggregated by: Production system, Main crop/livestock, geographic location (national, sub-national)
Production system: Crop, livestock, integrated crop-livestock
If crop or integrated crop-livestock system:

  • Main crop: Chickpea, lentil, faba beans, grass pea, spring barley, winter barley, durum wheat, spring bread wheat

    • Soil type: Heavy, light

    • Crop management: Good management, poor management

      • Good management practice: Break crops, summer weed control, early sowing, wider rows, irrigation timing/deficit irrigation regime, disease control, sub-soil manuring

    • Production/input system: Rain-fed only, mainly irrigated, mainly rain-fed with limited irrigation
      Main livestock: Goats, sheep, cattle

Method of Calculation: The inputs and output of production considered for this indicator are as described in OC-11.2.
Economic Water Productivity (EWP)=Economic value Gross margin of crop and/or livestock output (USD)Total amount of water supplied (m3)

Data sources: Farm households, farm records

Data collection method: Farm household surveys, document review
Additional data collection notes on determining economic value:
In addition to the data described in OC-11.2, collect data on:

  • Monetary value of water:

  • Family labor: Use of family labor labour and impute its value.

  • Crops: Input costs may include the cost of fertilizers, persticides, herbicides e.t.c

  • Livestock: Input costs may include costs on feed and veterinary treatments, as well as of farm workers' wages.
    Where markets do not exist, contingent valuation approaches such as willingness to pay elicitation should be used to derive the monetary value.

Data collection and reporting responsibility: Program leader, project leader, project M&E focal point person

Data Collection and Reporting Frequency: Annual, bi-annual, baseline, mid-term, end-term.

Evidence required:
For internal evaluation or research studies: Study protocol, data collection tools, dataset, report;
For external evaluation or research studies: Request for proposals (RFP) document, inception report, final report, dataset

Rationale: Information generated by tracking this indicator will be useful in understanding the economic (monetary) benefits that accrue to the farmers as a result of ICARDA'S work of identifying and promoting genotypes with better water-use efficiency and the associated agronomic and/or livestock management practices. In addition, the measurement of this indicator for integrated crop-livestock systems will provide insight on the complementarity and synergy between the two systems promoted for ensuring farming sytems resilience.

Comments and limitations: The lack of markets for certain products or inputs may pose a challenge as the inputed market values through valuation approaches such as willingness to pay or willingness to accept payment may not be accurate estimates for the real market value. However, with advances in the methodological approaches, it is anticipated that even with imputation of market values, this indicator will provide useful information to inform decision-making and determination of progress on this metric.