Determining water price for public water supply from Jatigede Reservoir

Abstract

The “user pays” principle is one of the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management. Water price should be set optimally, high enough to complement subsidies, but within the ability of users to pay for the water. This paper discusses the optimization of the water price for public water supply by considering the dominant parameters related to operational costs, government subsidies, and the ability to pay. The study location is the Jatigede reservoir, located in the Province of West Java with an effective reservoir volume of 877 million m3, and supplying public water supply at a rate of 3.5 m3/s. To investigate the feedback loop of the complex system of water price optimization, the system dynamics approach was applied. The study results showed that the water tariff for raw water reaches a numerical balance and can meet the annual operation and maintenance costs by up to 100%. The results of the analysis of the system dynamics model showed that the optimal price for raw water supply is lower than the price of raw water in other river basins.