Benchmark Basin Approach

Understanding how river basins respond to socio-economic shifts, water scarcity or competition for water between different users.

Benchmark Basins are IWMI's field laboratories. Each benchmark site serves the dual role of research and capacity building. Each basin is a partnership between IWMI and a range of local authorities and organizations, including ministries of water and agriculture, national research and university communities, environmental groups, NGOs, and local communities.

Partners come together to study the Benchmark Basin's hydrology, its institutional arrangements for managing water and land, socio-economic conditions, and health and environmental factors. This data is analyzed to present a dynamic portrait of the basin's natural resources management profile, as it evolves.

The benefits arising from the benchmark basin approach are many:

• Long term research in varying agro-ecological zones, with continuity and synergy (in contrast to a project-based approach).
• Development of generic research tools and methodologies, application and consolidation of research findings and opportunities for interventions and long term monitoring of impacts.
• Enhanced working relationships with partners and stakeholders; facilitating research work and data sharing, enabling interventions and capacity building.
• Datasets and experience reduce the start-up costs and time of new projects.
• Strengthened links with development agencies who are interested in working in the basin, with improved opportunities to attract research funds.