Classification and evaluation of the irrigation districts in Mexico based on performance indicators

One of the main issues of irrigation in Mexico is its management. Among the various institutions responsible of irrigation management in the country, the irrigation districts have one of the most important roles, hence the pertinence of studying their performance. Following the conceptual framework by Malano and Burton (2001), a procedure was designed to classify the irrigation districts and estimate their performance. The procedure consisted of the following steps: (1) classification of the irrigation districts by climatic groups; (2) selection and validation of irrigation performance indicators; (3) determination of clusters of irrigation districts, by climatic group, using principal components and cluster; (4) performance evaluation of each cluster using multivariate graphs and an arbitrary performance scale. Three climatic groups were obtained: a dry group (42 districts within five clusters), a humid temperate group (14 districts within two clusters) and a humid warm group (28 districts within six clusters). The clusters showed similar characteristics such as type of crops, the source of water supply, and infrastructure of irrigation channels, among others. In general, the irrigation performance of all clusters was low.