Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

S I G N I N G P R O G R E S S : I N D I C A T O R S M A R K T H E W A Y / 4 5Table 3.2: Example of the use of the DPSIR framework on the basis of the components of the Water Poverty Index (WPI)DPSIR WPI indicator WPI componentDriving force % of households receiving a pension/remittance or wage capacity(e.g. population density, poverty) expenditure measured by ownership of durable items capacityPressure domestic water consumption rate useagricultural water useusewater use for livestockuseindustrial water useuseState surface water assessment resourcegroundwater assessmentresourcereliability of resourcesresourcewater quality assessmentresourceImpact on people’s use of natural resources environmentenvironment crop loss environment% of households reporting erosion of land environmentImpact on people access to clean water accessreports of conflict over water useaccessaccess to sanitationaccess% of water carried by women accesstime spent in water collectionaccessaccess to irrigation coverageaccessunder-five mortality ratecapacity% of households reporting illness due to water supplies capacityResponse education level of population capacitymembership in water users associationscapacitySource: WWAP Secretariat, based on information from WPI, Sullivan et al., 2002a.Table 3.3: Criteria for the selection of indicatorsScientific requirements• robust, well-founded basis in scientific knowledge• representativeness, describing the state or quality of an issue or subject,giving significant and precise information• clearly and consistently defined, so as to be unambiguous or lendthemselves to various interpretations, or to give inconsistent results indifferent situations• be developed within an agreed-upon conceptual and operational framework• quantitative expression• be sensitive insofar as a small change to be measured should result in ameasurable change in the indicator• anticipatory, early warning, capable of indicating of degradation or riskbefore serious harm has occurred• stability, low natural variability in order to separate stress caused effectsfrom random fluctuations• specific for a certain stress or effect• broadly applicable to many stresses and sites, usable in different regions• uncertainties need to be specified• transformable (intelligent)Policy requirements• tailored to the needs of the primary users• have ownership by users• problem has to be manageable, thus cause-effect chain of indicator has tobe known to enable tackling of the problem• having a target or threshold against which to compare or an explicit scaleranging from undesirable states to desirable states (along with specificweightings) in order to assess the significance of the information• recording either changes in the means recommended by policy or changes inthe development impact attributable to policy• lend itself to be linked to models, forecasting and information systems• simple, easily interpretable and appealing to society in order to easecommunication between policy makers and society• matching with national and international policy plans and indicating theprogress of policy• availability of historical data in order to show trends over time• data should be readily collectable and, thereby, lowering the technical andcollection costs• normalized to make things comparable and providing a basis for regional,national and international comparisonSources: Information collected from the WWDR indicator workshop; Hoon et al., 1997; Van Harten et al. 1995; De Zwart 1995; Hendriks, 1995; Swart and Bakkes, 1995; OECD, 1994; Kuik and Verbruggen, 1991; Liverman et al., 1988.