Quality of Urban Water Services Provided to Users: Assessment System and the Portuguese Path through Four Generations, Lessons Learned and New Challenges

Abstract

Public water supply, urban wastewater and stormwater management, and urban waste management are structural public services, essential to well-being, public health, and the safety of populations as well as to economic activities and environmental protection. These services must be guided by principles of universal access, continuity and quality of service, and efficiency and fairness of applied tariffs. The main concern of the regulation of these services is the protection of the interests of the users through the promotion of the quality of the service provided by the water utilities and the guarantee of balance in the practiced tariffs, materialized in the principles of universality, equity, reliability, and cost-efficiency. The quality of the urban water services has been assessed by ERSAR (the Portuguese regulator) since 2004, when the first generation of the assessment system was developed, and has undergone three periodical critical revisions. The fourth generation, developed in 2021, entered in force in 2022. This paper presents the fourth generation of ERSAR’s system for assessing the quality of urban water services in Continental Portugal, focusing on the path followed and addressing the experience of its application over almost two decades, the lessons learned, and the new challenges for the water sector.