Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

4 6 / S E T T I N G T H E S C E N ESigning Progress: Indicators Mark the WayIn that case, the investment in data collection should be in balancewith the information gained by the indicator. Data on socio-economicactivities can be found in socio-economic databases and statistics.Data on the quantity and quality of resources may be obtained fromliterature, monitoring programmes, surveys and special projects.For an integrated use of socio-economic and environmentalindicators, the data have to be converted to the appropriate spatiallevel. Socio-economic statistics tend to be collected for administrativeregions and aggregated to larger spatial levels (e.g. the nationallevel), whereas environmental data are collected at the level of awater body or river basin. These differences in scale complicated theintegrated use of the different indicators in the adopted framework.More discussion on data is provided in the next section of this chapter.Step 6: Developing indicatorsIn the last step the indicators are developed. If sufficient data areavailable, an indicator can be calculated. If not, the data should becollected by means of monitoring or surveys. If data collection is notpossible, new or alternative indicators will need to be considered byreturning to the step of formulating potential indicators.It should be noted that indicator development is an ongoingprocess, which requires adherence to the notion of learning bydoing. This means that a set of indicators is never definite and theselected list of indicators is no exception. With time, the indicatorswill be adapted and improved on the basis of changing informationneeds, progress in policy development and scientific insights andexperiences gleaned from the use of the indicators. The countriesinvolved in the process of developing and proposing indicators musthave full ownership of those indicators, and not be restricted to apreconceived list. The seven pilot case studies of this first WWDRare a good example of the broadening of indicator horizons.