Defining Success: A Multicriteria Approach to Guide Evaluation and Investment

Environmental water programs have complex goals and operate over long periods, and often across large spatial scales. As more programs transition from high-level policy commitments to on-ground implementation, it is becoming increasingly important to evaluate the success of these programs. Traditionally, the evaluation of environmental water programs has focused on effectiveness and efficiency and monitoring reports often focus on outputs at the expense of outcomes. This chapter identifies six criteria to help define success over the long term, and guide ongoing investment to implement and sustain environmental watering programs. Three criteria emphasize the broad policy goals of environmental water programs: efficacy, efficiency, and legitimacy. The next three criteria reflect the essential implementation conditions: legal and administrative frameworks, organizational capacity, and partnerships. Together, these policy goals and practical conditions define the features of successful environmental water programs, and provide an essential tool for guiding investment and evaluation of these programs around the world. This multicriteria approach is illustrated using case studies from the Columbia River Basin in the United States and the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia. Performance management for environmental water programs is not easy, and this chapter does not pretend to provide all the answers. However, by developing a structure to guide future evaluation and investment, we hope to facilitate knowledge transfer in a coordinated and coherent way.