Municipal Water Utilities Research Articles

Sustainable Water Development : Between Urban and Rural

This paper aims to explain the circumstances of water development in urban and rural areas in terms of the municipal water utilities (MWUs) as primary water supply providers that upholds distributing water to achieve sustainable safe water access. To provide a fundamental analysis, a case study was conducted in 10 cities in Indonesia including Bandung, Surabaya, Palembang, Makassar, and Balikpapan as a representation of urban areas; and Ngawi, Garut, Gunung Mas, North Minahasa, and Ende as a representation of rural areas. The discussion focuses on the aspects of the population served, non-revenue water (NRW), and pricing policies. As a result, so far, MWUs have only been able to cover 61.76 percent of the total population with a high imbalance between the urban, 81.60 percent, and the rural, 41.92 percent. The high rate of NRW is still a problem for MWUs both in the urban and rural areas with a rate of 36.67 percent. And the last, the pricing policy by some local governments still set below the full cost recovery (FCR) caused MWUs run in losses which consequently made to local governments invested more money to cover the operational costs. A sustainable water development requires policy support that helps MWUs to operate independently so that it can fulfill its function as a provider of water services that can cover the entire population.

Heat pump system assessment for a groundwater‐source municipal drinking water utility

Compared to a typical heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, a groundwater source heat pump (GSHP) system should have lower operating costs and greenhouse gas emissions, providing economic and environmental advantages for a ground water‐based municipal water utility. This article describes a test of that hypothesis, involving simulations and evaluations of the economic performance of the above two systems for a model office building in five major U.S. climate zones. The cost–benefit analysis suggests that a GSHP system in climate zone 5 (Chicago‐region) has the best return on investment, whereas climate zone 2 (Phoenix‐region) is not economically promising. Relative to a reference HVAC system, the GSHP system has lower carbon emissions in each of the five climate zones, with the greatest reduction of carbon emissions occurring in climate zone 5 (Chicago‐region). Significance: When faced with decisions about hot water supply and space heating and cooling, relative to drinking water utilities that rely on surface waters, groundwater‐based utilities have ready access to groundwater source heat pumps (GSHPs) that should offer better energy efficiency and lower greenhouse gas emissions. These advantages, however, will depend on regional climate conditions and the course of electrical energy. A better understanding of GSHP performance in different climate zones will provide the information needed to make these decisions. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 38:e13047, 2019

Charges for Water and Access: What Explains the Differences Among West Virginian Municipalities?

Examining both spatial and non-spatial econometric analyses with a dataset of 125 municipal water utilities, we investigate utility cost and community factors that explain variation in residential user charges and monthly access charges for water. The results of water charges model are consistent with the theory of water cost determination as water source, debt, and economies of size plus scale influence residential consumer charges for water. Both models (water charges and minimum monthly access) displayed positive spillover effects, although the only variable in either model with a significant indirect effect is water charges on minimum monthly access charges. Based upon model results, ground water use by utilities lowers water charges and is estimated to save residential customers in West Virginia over $3.6 million annually. West Virginia households typically pay far below the OECD standard of 3 to 5% of household income for municipal water, which may explain why socioeconomic factors do not influence minimum monthly charges for access.

Benchmarking Intangible Assets in the Water Sector: an Evidence from Indonesia

This article aims to provide an empirical evidence of the value of intellectual capital, as a proxy of intangible assets, in the water sector. It is very interesting considering there are only a few researches that explore the value of the intellectual capital in this sector and is expected to fill the gap of the literature review. This study presumed that the value of intellectual capital in the water sector is low in view of the fact that it is a capital-intensive sector. It adopted the value added intellectual coefficient (VAICTM) as the instrument to measure the value of intellectual capital. The data were collected during the year of 2013-2015 from 253 municipal water utilities (MWUs) in Indonesia consisting of 83 MWUs in 2013, 79 MWUs in 2014, and 91 MWUs in 2015. It was found that the average VAICTM value was 2.082 and the range values were between 1.157 and 4.298. This wide range indicates a gap between MWUs. Even another result performs that half of the MWUs have sustainable criteria. Finally, this research recommends MWUs management to re-evaluate human capital policies due to the low value of intellectual capital, so that the bigger amount of investment in human capital would not be wasted.

Study of Iron Pipe Corrosion in Municipal Water Distribution System and Its Effect

Deterioration could lead to destruction of materials with chemical or electrochemical reaction as corrosion. Corrosion is one of the most complicated and costly problems facing in municipal drinking water utilities. A large number of parameters affected pipe corrosion, including water quality and composition, flow conditions, biological iron activity, and corrosion inhibitors. Corrosion scales play an important role in modifying water quality in drinking water distribution systems. The corrosion scales from old water pipe lines were analyzed for their structure and composition. This paper mainly studied the deposits found in water distribution system of Municipal and protection of corrosion methods as well as to preventive measurements of the iron pipe corrosion. The corrosion scales had a shell-like, enveloping layer, covering porous deposits of iron oxide phases. Catastrophic failures are obtained in water distribution systems, so major layer will be occurred. The ground water samples were drawn from the area and subjected to physical and chemical analysis and the analysis results were used to evaluate in laboratory works.

Pluvial, urban flood mechanisms and characteristics – Assessment based on insurance claims

Pluvial flooding is a problem in many cities and for city planning purpose the mechanisms behind pluvial flooding are of interest. Previous studies seldom use insurance claim data to analyse city scale characteristics that lead to flooding. In the present study, two long time series (∼20 years) of flood claims from property owners have been collected and analysed in detail to investigate the mechanisms and characteristics leading to urban flooding. The flood claim data come from the municipal water utility company and property owners with insurance that covers property loss from overland flooding, groundwater intrusion through basement walls and flooding from the drainage system. These data are used as a proxy for flood severity for several events in the Swedish city of Malmö. It is discussed which rainfall characteristics give most flooding and why some rainfall events do not lead to severe flooding, how city scale topography and sewerage system type influence spatial distribution of flood claims, and which impact high sea level has on flooding in Malmö. Three severe flood events are described in detail and compared with a number of smaller flood events. It was found that the main mechanisms and characteristics of flood extent and its spatial distribution in Malmö are intensity and spatial distribution of rainfall, distance to the main sewer system as well as overland flow paths, and type of drainage system, while high sea level has little impact on the flood extent. Finally, measures that could be taken to lower the flood risk in Malmö, and other cities with similar characteristics, are discussed.

The costs of delay in infrastructure investments: A comparison of 2001 and 2014 household water supply coping costs in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

AbstractIn 2001, we conducted a survey of 1500 randomly sampled households in Kathmandu to determine the costs people were incurring to cope with Kathmandu's poor quality, unreliable piped water supply system. From 2001 until 2014, there was little additional public investment in the municipal water supply system. In the summer of 2014, we attempted to reinterview all 1500 households in our 2001 sample to determine how they had managed to deal with the growing water shortage and the deteriorating condition of the piped water infrastructure in Kathmandu and to compare their coping costs in 2014 with those we first estimated in 2001. Average household coping costs more than doubled in real terms over the period from 2001 to 2014, from US$5 to US$12 per month (measured in 2014 prices). The composition of household coping costs changed from 2001 to 2014, as households responded to the deteriorating condition of the piped water infrastructure by drilling more private wells, purchasing water from both tanker truck and bottled water vendors, and installing more storage tanks. These investments and expenditures resulted in a decline in the time households spend collecting water from outside the home. Our analysis suggests that the significant increase in coping costs between 2001 and 2014 may provide an opportunity for the municipal water utility to substantially increase water tariffs if the quantity and quality of piped services can be improved. However, the capital investments made by some households in private wells, pumping and treatment systems, and storage tanks in response to the delay in infrastructure investment may lock them into current patterns of water use, at least in the short run, and thus make it difficult to predict how they would respond to tariff increases for improved piped water services.

A Utility Dodges Pipe Breaks With Solid Planning

Under a sweeping asset management program, a municipal water utility targeted distribution system vulnerabilities and planned cost‐effective pipe replacements.

Valuing a Logging Externality: Loss of the Water Purification Service of Temperate Coastal Rainforests

In many biodiversity rich watersheds, there is a lack of understanding concerning the trade-offs between timber harvesting and maintaining the watershed’s other ecosystem services, where losses of these services can occur as an externality from timber harvesting. As a result, the potential benefit from an appropriate mix of activities in multiple-use watersheds frequently remains unrealized. Our study provides insight into such trade-offs by estimating the value of a loss in a forest’s water purification/filtration service due to sedimentation caused by logging (the externality). More specifically, we develop a model to quantify the economic impact of increased sedimentation from forest roads on the quality of raw water withdrawn by a municipal water utility. Our approach is novel in several ways. First, we recognize the complex response of the water treatment plant to elevated sedimentation (turbidity) by considering a stochastic environmental influence on water system performance; to accommodate this complexity, we estimate the number of times turbidity exceeds an acceptable threshold by using a count data estimation procedure. Second, we generate alternative time series for turbidity that vary according to assumptions about forest management (logging versus no logging), traffic volume (road use intensity) and aggregate road length. We find that reductions in the economic value of the water purification/filtration service is more sensitive to traffic volume than other considerations but only when the road use is High, as the welfare effect in other cases is modest. Our analysis will be helpful to forest planners who must consider the trade-offs in forest management when timber harvesting can have harmful impacts on important ecosystem services, such as water purification/filtration.

Dynamic capabilities for water system transitions in Oklahoma

Based on semi-structured interviews with key decision-makers from 38 distinct municipal water utilities in Oklahoma, this paper examines the innovation process that drives water system transitions in response to external pressures, including climate change, policy, and economic trends; and to address internal system needs, such as supply expansion and infrastructure upgrades. A multiple linear regression analysis reveals a strong, positive relationship between innovations and dynamic capabilities, suggesting that dynamic capabilities are crucial to the transition of water systems. The strength of the relationship between sensing, seizing and reconfiguring dynamic capabilities and innovations differs by type of innovation. Water manager awareness of the state-level Water for 2060 Act was shown to have significant influence on the number of innovations generated by municipal water systems, while water manager licensure level was not a reliable predictor of innovation. Recommendations for encouraging much needed radical innovations are outlined.

Evaluating the Performance of Alternative Municipal Water Tariff Designs: Quantifying the Tradeoffs between Equity, Economic Efficiency, and Cost Recovery

The design of municipal water tariffs requires balancing multiple criteria such as financial self-sufficiency for the service provider, equity among customers, and economic efficiency for society. A modeling framework is developed for analyzing how alternative municipal water tariff designs affect these three criteria. It is then applied to a hypothetical community in which a municipal water utility provides metered, piped water, and wastewater services to 5,000 households. We analyze how the shift from a uniform volumetric tariff to different increasing block tariff (IBT) designs affects households’ water use and water bills, and how these changes in turn affect measures of equity and economic efficiency for two different financial self-sufficiency targets. We calculate how changes in assumptions about (1) the correlation between household income and water use, and (2) households’ response to average or marginal prices affect the tariffs’ performance in terms of these three criteria. The results show that IBTs perform poorly in terms of targeting subsidies to low-income households regardless of the magnitude of financial subsidies that a utility receives from high-level government. When cost recovery is low, the distribution of subsidies under IBTs is even worse if the correlation between water use and household income is high. IBTs introduce price distortions that induce economic efficiency losses, but we show that these welfare losses are relatively small, especially when households respond to average prices.

Highlights of key international water infrastructure asset management initiatives, and trends, challenges and developments in Portugal

Over the last two decades, remarkable progress in the Portuguese drinking water and wastewater services sector has been achieved. Nevertheless, it faces a serious challenge in trying to ensure long-term sustainability. There is equally scope for considerable efficiency and effectiveness gains. The national strategic plan for the period 2014–2020 has assigned a prominent role to infrastructure asset management (IAM) in the paradigm shift required in water services. This paper discusses the progress made, the critical issues and the challenges faced by the Portuguese water sector regarding IAM, based on a comparative analysis of international and national contexts. Various worldwide initiatives are presented. The main drivers to start using IAM were quite diverse. In Portugal, legislation initially contributed to attracting the attention of the sector to IAM, but LNEC, a research institute, has played a leading role in this process. The water services regulator has also been playing a very important role. The highly fragmented structure, the politicised nature of municipal water utility management and the existing accounting procedures are some of the main barriers to the spread of IAM best practices. The sector's ongoing restructuring and the new tariff regulation will be key enabling opportunities and challenges in coming years.

Charting New Waters: Why Has Integrated Water Management Succeeded in Some States But Not Others?

Author(s): Tellman, Barbara | Abstract: Integrating the management of groundwater and surface water, which were once treated as separate resources in most western states, has become the norm in recognition of their hydrologic connection and because of its importance in providing cheap, reliable water storage. US Water Alliance, a coalition of municipal water utilities, agricultural leaders, and environmental interests, has held a series of meetings promoting the idea of “One Water Management” and developing a network to share information and advance its agenda of “adaptive, integrative water management planning”One notable exception is California where regulation and management of surface water and groundwater remain separate and distinct.

Drinking from the Talent Pool: A Resource Endowment Theory of Human Capital and Agency Performance

AbstractThis article advances a resource endowment theory of human capital and performance in government organizations. Building on research on human capital and firm location in business economics and task complexity in public management, the authors argue that an agency's ability to implement policy is determined both by its scale and by the human capital of the population from which it draws its employees. The authors cast labor as a factor of production in public agencies and argue that access to higher‐quality labor improves government effectiveness. The effect of human capital on performance is especially pronounced when agencies are charged with the implementation of technically complex tasks. The empirical subject is U.S. municipal water utilities’ compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. Comparing records of compliance with more and less complex regulatory requirements provides evidence consistent with the general model. The findings carry important implications for public management and policy design.

The Water Utility Risk Integration Matrix: Demonstrating Potential for an Integrated Approach to Municipal Water Management

Municipal water utilities traditionally have been managed in isolation with little consideration of common factors affecting risk. An integrated approach to mu…

Utility–Customer Communication

The aim of this article is to shed light on the theory and praxis of utility stakeholder communication. Our general research objective is to contrast citizens’ experiences of utility-specific information needs with the views of communication managers of municipal water utilities. Empirical data for the study were gathered using two methods. Citizens’ views were gathered from street interviews in several Finnish middle-sized cities, whereas the views of communication professionals of municipal water utilities were collected via email-based survey. Empirical analysis shows that one-way communication has its relevance, and it should actually be improved most notably in exceptional situations, such as water supply disruptions. More profound changes in customer communication require, however, that utilities support customers’ strive for sustainable and economical water consumption. The overall challenge to utilities is to get closer to the everyday needs of their customers and to develop new communication culture to support such an endeavor.

Predicting the Probability of Default for Municipal Water Utilities in Indonesia

We developed a model to predict the probability that Indonesian municipal water utilities would default on their payments to the central government. This model was based on 126 real cases (57 non-default and 69 default cases). We used two indicators, financial strength and technical efficiency. The former was based on linear combinations of operating ratio, cash ratio, overhead-to-revenue ratio, operation–maintenance cost recovery ratio, and solvency; the latter was based on linear combinations of service coverage, production efficiency, operating hours, and ratio of staff to 1,000 connections. Our logistic-regression-based model was accurate in classifying 85% of cases correctly (Type I error = 13.0%, Type II error = 17.5%). Furthermore, the regression coefficients indicate that a one-unit increase in the financial strength score and the technical efficiency score for a water utility could reduce the odds of default by 81.4% and 41.4%, respectively.

Water services sector reform: the Kosova experience

Governments of countries with emerging economies usually are not very successful in providing safe and sufficient potable water and adequate wastewater services to their citizens. The reasons vary from inadequate institutional structures to chronic under-investment in water infrastructure. To address this, governments embark on reforms based on commonly accepted principles of good governance such as: separation of policy, regulation and service delivery; protecting customer interests; and ensuring financial viability of water utilities and restructuring them so as to benefit from economies of scale and economies of scope. Kosova initiated water sector reforms in 2000 based on five pillars: (i) establishment of a legal and institutional framework, (ii) consolidation of 30 municipal water utilities into seven regional entities, (iii) incorporation in line with corporate governance principles, (iv) establishment of an independent economic regulator and (v) ownership and pushing of reforms by government. The paper describes the challenges encountered in implementing these reforms which, as far as the institutional and legislative framework is concerned, were successfully completed by 2008. Also, the difficulties associated with consolidation of newly created institutions resulting from the reform and defining their roles in the water services sector are described in the paper.

Benchmarking the efficiencies of Indonesia’s municipal water utilities using Stackelberg data envelopment analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a yardstick efficiency comparison of 269 Indonesian municipal water utilities (MWUs) and measures the impact of exogenous environmental variables on efficiency scores. Design/methodology/approach – Two-stage Stackelberg leader-follower data envelopment analysis (DEA) and artificial neural networks (ANN) were employed. Findings – Given that serviceability was treated as the leader and profitability as the follower, the first and second stage DEA scores were 55 and 32 percent (0 percent = totally inefficient, 100 percent = perfectly efficient), respectively. This indicates sizeable opportunities for improvement, with 39 percent of the total sample facing serious problems in both first- and second-stage efficiencies. When profitability instead leads serviceability, this results in more decreased efficiency. The size of the population served was the most important exogenous environmental variable affecting DEA efficiency scores in both the first and second stages. Research limitations/implications – The present study was limited by the overly restrictive assumption that all MWUs operate at a constant-return-to-scale. Practical implications – These research findings will enable better management of the MWUs in question, allowing their current level of performance to be objectively compared with that of their peers, both in terms of scale and area of operation. These findings will also help the government prioritize assistance measures for MWUs that are suffering from acute performance gaps, and to devise a strategic national plan to revitalize Indonesia’s water sector. Originality/value – This paper enriches the body of knowledge by filling in knowledge gaps relating to benchmarking in Indonesia’s water industry, as well as in the application of ensemble two-stage DEA and ANN, which are still rare in the literature.

Calibrating a New Membrane Plant Clears Hurdles

A coastal municipal water utility replaced its obsolete pressure sand filtration water treatment plant with a new state‐of‐the‐art submerged membrane plant and expected a clear path ahead for safe water. But operators soon had to reduce disinfection by‐product formation, remove manganese fouling, decrease total organic carbon, and more.