Benchmarking and multivariate data analysis techniques for improving the efficiency of irrigation districts: An application in Spain

Performance indicators are a powerful tool for identifying deficiencies in irrigation district management and determining which measures should be taken to improve them. This process is known as Benchmarking. Until now, analysis has been based on direct comparisons of performance indicators from different irrigation districts. However, this procedure does not provide an overall view of the actual performance of each district in relation to others. Furthermore, on some occasions irrigation districts are compared with very different ones and best practices cannot be adapted to organisations having lower performance. In this paper, a methodology to analyse performance indicators is developed and applied to nine irrigation districts in Andalusia (Spain).