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Indicators and BenchmarksSustainable Indicators An indicator refers to a policy-relevant variable that is specified and defined in such a way as to be measurable over time and/or space. It needs to be quantified; measurement can be on the basis of qualitative scales. But the key feature of an indicator is that measurement can take place and this, in turn, allows comparison. Such comparison may take a variety of forms: over time, of one government unit with another, of one project with another, of performance against objectives. Sustainability Indicators can play a number of different roles, which can be
summarised under 3 broad headings: Water Performance Indicators The Performance Indicators describe the characteristics and the performance of individual features of utility systems. To serve its purpose each indicator must not only be very precisely defined, but also understood and generally accepted internationally. Indicators use may have several reasons: to assist with strategic planning,
to facilitate better quality and responses from managers, to allow monitoring
of the effects of management decisions, to provide key information to support
a more pro-active approach to management rather than reacting to apparent system
malfunctions, to facilitate the implementation of benchmark routines, both internally,
for comparing the performance for sub-systems and externally for comparison
with other similar undertakings etc. IWA Performance Indicators are available on the following website: |