# Water Gender Indicators in Agriculture: A Study of
## 1 Introduction
### Water Gender Indicators  
One the main problems encountered in analyzing gender and water issues in agricultural contexts is the wide lack of available and uniform gender-disaggregated data, often highlighted by practitioners and academics [49; 50]--a deficit that may negatively influence the calculation and application of SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) water gender indicators. However, even in the case of a larger availability of statistical information, data must be contextualized and critically detailed in order to adequately define the whole complexity behind gender relations and water management.  
Hence, the difficulty to measure these dynamics and elaborate some gender sensitive indicators arises. Indicators are common tools for the lifetime because they summarize large amounts of data and give precise information on the investigated topic. Gender indicators are even more critical because they require an accurate data gathering process disaggregated by sex. Moreover, they also capture many different aspects of women's and men's lives and reflect many gender issues. Some studies were carried out on water and gender indicators in agriculture [30; 51; 52].  
One of the most remarkable attempts is represented by the work of [PERSON], who proposed the Gender Performance Indicator for Irrigation (GPII). The GPII identifies intra-household divisions of farm labor and decision-making and access to land and water, and determines whether the decision-makers of a household's irrigated plots are women or men. The GPII further analyses the participation of women farm decision-makers within Water User Associations and their participation in leadership [30]. This latter point allows for stressing other important issues in the study of water and gender nexus: the possibility to become a member of such water associations is often connected to titles of land and water (generally owned by men). Since control over water resources and relative decisions generally results in political power, often rural women lack decision-making and voices within irrigation and water management organizations, contributing to rendering their active role in agriculture once again more invisible [17].  
Another valuable attempt is represented by the Socio-economic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) methodology, based on the analysis of socio-economic patterns and the participatory identification of the different gender needs at a rural level. The SEAGA was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in partnership with the International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Bank (WB) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 1999. In particular, the SEAGA tool includes a Guide on Irrigation, aimed to include a more gender-oriented and participatory planning within the irrigation systems. An in depth space was dedicated to the women exclusion by the construction and the maintenance operations [15], however without providing specific gender indicators.  
The water gender indicators proposed in this study differ from the previous attempts: in this case, we underlined more the technical component (irrigation systems, type of used technology and fertilization system) applied to the specific context of horticulture. Furthermore, in this research, we did not focus on the households, but we considered three types of FOs (female, male and mixed) not only dedicated to irrigation purposes (as the GPII).