Indicators play an important role in helping people make sense of change in complex social and environmental systems. They are used to track progress, communicate priorities, support accountability, and inform decisions across programmes and policy settings. In adaptive management, indicators link learning to action, helping people notice change, reflect on what it means, and adjust decisions over time.
In practice, many initiatives struggle with indicators that are too numerous, focus only on what is easy to measure, or fail to connect with the values and decisions that really matter. Developing indicators that are both credible and useful requires balancing technical robustness with stakeholder perspectives, and ensuring that monitoring supports judgement and strategy rather than sitting alongside them as a separate reporting task.
Indicators are often linked to different parts of a programme or system, with those related to activities and outputs supporting performance and accountability, and those linked to outcomes, impacts, and system responses informing learning and policy decisions. Being clear about this helps ensure that indicators are selected and used in ways that are fit for purpose.
A short reflective post, Indicators, judgement, and adaptation: making sense of change in complex settings, explores how indicators function in practice across long-running programmes, particularly how their value emerges through interpretation, dialogue, and ongoing use.
This page brings together selected resources to support the development of indicators that are meaningful, manageable, and connected to real-world decisions, particularly in complex, place-based settings. For a focused look at how these challenges play out in climate contexts, see the related page on Climate adaptation metrics and learning.
Key resources on developing indicators
These resources highlight different perspectives on indicator design and use, including critical reflections, practical frameworks, and applied examples.
Effective indicators for place-based initiatives 
This 2026 Learning for Sustainability guide provides a practical approach to developing and using indicators in collaborative, place-based and multi-actor settings. It sets out a six-step process, from clarifying purpose and involving the right people through to using indicators for monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management. It also covers conceptual frameworks, rubrics and structured judgement, working across knowledge systems, and practical tools such as indicator profiles and monitoring action plans.
Conventional approaches to indicators and metrics undermine urban climate adaptation
This 2025 review by Marta Olazabal and colleagues looks across hundreds of urban adaptation indicators and finds they are mostly short-term, input-focused, and weakly connected to decisions. It highlights how entrenched metrics can lock in outdated views of progress, and argues for indicator systems that better support learning, governance, and day-to-day practitioner judgement.
The public sector performance paradox
This 2023 ANZSOG brief draws together evidence on how public-sector performance indicators often look better over time while telling practitioners less about what is really happening. It shows how indicator regimes tied to accountability can encourage gaming and tunnel vision, and offers a useful frame for anyone who feels reporting demands are crowding out reflection and adaptation.
GEF good-practice study on indicators for climate-adaptation M&E
Synthesises widely used frameworks (UNDP, Making Adaptation Count, Adaptation Made to Measure, TAMD, PPCR, etc.) and how to use them from project to portfolio levels. Distils practical selection criteria (SMART, ADAPT, SPICED, CREAM, FABRIC, USAID) and stresses manageable, decision-useful sets built through participatory processes.
Assessing and advancing ocean equity
This 2025 open-access paper by Nathan Bennett and colleagues outlines practical approaches for monitoring and advancing equity in ocean-focused initiatives. The authors provide guidance on developing fit-for-purpose indicators, tracking changes in equity, and linking assessments to action. The paper is especially relevant for governments, NGOs, and funders seeking to integrate equity into marine conservation, fisheries, and climate adaptation.
INTRAC Practical Guide to Indicators: Ensuring Feasibility, Relevance, and Adaptability (2024)
The 2024 INTRAC guide by Nigel Simister emphasizes questions to ensure indicators are realistic to collect, meaningful for decisions, and adaptable over time. It covers stakeholder capacity, data quality, cost, frequency, and revising indicators as contexts evolve, fostering reflection and accountability.
Incorporating local sustainability indicators into structures of local governance: a review of the literature
The impact of sustainability indicators on policy is often unclear. This 2009 paper by Nancy Holman reviews how governance structures influence the effectiveness of indicators in shaping decision-making. It explores how indicators can serve as a catalyst for policy discussions and help bridge contested views of sustainability by facilitating stakeholder relationships.
Related guides and frameworks
The resources above focus on practical and reflective approaches to developing indicators in complex settings. The guides below provide additional background on indicator frameworks and their use in planning, reporting, and policy contexts. These are particularly useful where indicators need to align with larger-scale monitoring and reporting systems.
Using indicators for improved water resources management
A detailed practitioner guide for basin managers, covering indicator frameworks, selection criteria, stakeholder engagement, and communication. Particularly useful for understanding how indicators connect to planning, reporting, and decision-making across different scales, and how local indicator systems relate to national and global monitoring frameworks.
A reference guide on the use of indicators for integrated coastal management
A comprehensive reference covering environmental, social, and governance indicators across multiple scales. Strong on conceptual frameworks and examples, particularly in policy and coastal management contexts. Best used as a background resource for understanding the wider landscape of indicator systems.
Indicators are often developed alongside programme design and system frameworks. This page focuses on practical resources for developing indicators; for a broader overview of how indicators and metrics are used in practice, see the indicators and metrics hub. Related pages on this site also cover approaches such as theory of change, logic models, and DPSIR, which help link indicators to activities, outcomes, and wider system dynamics.
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