Urban Water Utilities Research Articles

Misalignments in prepaid water technology: findings from urban poor settings of Kampala, Uganda

ABSTRACT Progressive urban water utilities in developing countries have, since the mid-2000s deployed prepaid dispensers (PPDs) to provide reliable and equitably priced water services to slum residents. This paper reports on a study that evaluates the performance of the PPDs first deployed in the slums of Kampala in 2006 by the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), Uganda's main urban water utility. By February 2020, over 1,400 PPDs were installed in 20 slums, serving residents through over 33,000 access tokens. Data were collected in 2019/2020 through 275 household questionnaires, 17 key informant interviews, and 8 focus group discussions. The main finding was that although the PPD technology has achieved a relatively high diffusion rate, water drawn therefrom was an average of a paltry 7 litres per capita per day, meaning that many slum residents still rely on other water sources of doubtful quality. Key misalignments include misappropriation by local middlemen, who inflate the prices; high levels of technical malfunctions; and the utility's overreliance on international development financing for asset maintenance and expansion. NWSC should mainstream the pro-poor service department and build the necessary capabilities to ensure better technical functionality of the PPDs, including setting up smart partnerships where necessary.

The influence of regulation on preference for utility infrastructure investment to generate income for Australian water corporations

ABSTRACT Effects of price regulation and preference for utility supply infrastructure on Australian urban water utilities and urban water markets are examinated using historical data, models of the future and a case study of Greater Sydney. Australian regulators utilise the building block method based on operating and capital costs, and a Regulatory Asset Base to set nominal revenue requirements and ultimately prices for water utility services. Regulation of water utilities that is dependent on a Regulatory Asset Base drives preference for utility infrastructure and is remote from market mechanisms of consumer demands for water and sewage services. These regulatory processes are not linked to the operation of the urban water market of government owned utility and distributed solutions, and act to crowd out viable complementary solutions including water efficiency, distributed water sources and alternative pricing models. Government regulation, ownership and operation of utilities may produce strong performance from the perspective of urban water corporations but decrease economic efficiency, resilience and social welfare in urban water markets. The role of major water corporations needs to be redefined in a market recognising multiple complementary water sources and services. Regulation of utility services should have regard to the entire market, market demand, environmental health and consumer welfare.

Developing a Drought Resilience Matrix to Evaluate Water Supply Alternatives

Cities around the world are facing increased sensitivity to drought effects. Climate-change-induced drought affects not only the natural hydrology of the broad macroclimate but also those in the urban microclimates. The increasing frequency and duration of droughts are creating challenges for urban water utilities to convey water through distribution systems to customers reliably and consistently. This has led many urban areas like San Francisco, California, to search for unique alternative water supply projects to help bolster the drought resilience of the coupled human and natural water system. This paper focuses on applying the features of resilience (i.e., plan, adapt, absorb, and recover) through a drought resilience matrix to water supply alternatives to analyze how the addition of these projects would increase the overall water system’s drought resilience. San Francisco, California, was used as the case study to test the use of this matrix. Three portfolios (modifying existing supply, recycling, and desalination, as well as local approaches) were created and tested in the matrix. Each portfolio is composed of various alternative water supply projects that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is considering for implementation. Results concluded that the local approaches portfolio provided the most drought resilience, with the recycling and desalination portfolio providing the least resilience. The study approach and the presented findings will provide guidance to water utility professionals in supply planning to enhance drought resilience.

Distribution of Benefits and Risks in Inter-Basin Water Transfers: The Case Study of NCT I from Upper Tana Basin to Nairobi City

Inter-Basin Water Transfers (IBWTs) introduce complex socioeconomic, hydrological, ecological, and institutional impacts that are instrumental to decision-making. However, since most studies focus on the hydrological and ecological aspects of IBWTs for the development of sustainable water resources, it is necessary to investigate the distribution of risks (costs) and benefits of IBWTs among stakeholders. This study aimed to identify and categorize stakeholders, their relationships, and the distribution of risks/costs and benefits in the Northern Collector Tunnel phase I (NCT 1) IBWT using a stakeholder analysis method. The Athi Water Works Development Agency (AWWDA) and the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MoWI) played a central role in the project. However, most stakeholders found the devolved units Water Services Providers (WSPs), Water Resources Authority (WRA), Water Resources Users Associations (WRUAs), and Murang'a County as the most critical institutions. Public participation in NCT1 was not inclusive but only done to meet the statutory project requirements. Significant risks of the project emerged, such as reduced river flows, drying of the springs, and Murang'a residents' ability to meet their water needs. Therefore, it is necessary to compensate for diverted water through a water levy to cover environmental externalities and catchment conservation. The increase in water supply for Nairobi City was perceived as the main benefit for the recipient basin, but an improved water levy with adequate cross-subsidies was pointed out as an instrument to catalyze water savings by the urban water utility.

Comparing multi-criteria models for ranking the Performance of India's water supply utilities

Correct performance evaluation and ranking of water utilities involve several conflicting objectives. The solution to such problems can be obtained using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. However, the results of most of these methods are affected by the weights assigned to the criteria and the normalization process used in the development of the evaluation matrix. This study addressed these limitations by comparing two relatively new MCDM methods, MOOORA and MAIRCA, for ranking urban water utilities in India. Both methods were illustrated for ranking 20 urban water supply utilities in India based on 13 indicators.

Assessment of the economic and water leakage efficiency in Chilean urban water utilities

ABSTRACT This study evaluates the economic and water leakage efficiency (ELE) of a sample of Chilean water companies using efficiency analysis trees (EAT). The potential savings in operating costs and leakage could reach a level of 58%. This is equivalent to a reduction in operating costs of £391.5 million per year and in water leakage of 20.6 million cubic metres per year. A downward trend in ELE scores was observed from 2007 to 2018. It was revealed that customer density and the source of raw water had a statistically significant impact on the ELE of water companies.

Blockchain applicability in the management of urban water supply and sanitation systems in Spain

Blockchain constitutes a disruptive technology that is currently changing business models and the way organizations operate. This paper explores the applicability of blockchain technology, and of distributed ledger technologies in general, to urban water supply and sanitation services in Spain. The potential of this technology for improving processes in this sector is assessed through a specific methodology of strategic analysis developed for this purpose. First, the technical, legal and managerial factors that condition the potential use of this technology to address the global, operational and governance challenges faced by urban water management are explored. Second, strategic analysis tools (e.g. value chain, factors of competition, and benchmarking) are used to model a water utility organization as a set of processes and characterize blockchain as an enabling technology with both benefits (traceability, immutability, and disintermediation) and limitations. Based on cost-benefit analysis, use cases in which the implementation of a blockchain could improve the organization's performance can be discerned. The results identify the processes and sub-processes of urban water utility management for which the use of a blockchain could improve performance: comprehensive maintenance, the management of serious incidents, and supplier management. Essentially, the methodology developed identifies management processes whose requirements are efficiently met through automation derived from blockchain solutions. Regardless of the management models currently in place in Spain, the traceability and disintermediation benefits of blockchain solutions can help to overcome governance and efficiency challenges associated with the management of urban water supply and sanitation services.

Pragmatism as an approach for decision-making: Why two Kenyan water utilities opted for pre-paid water dispensers

Since the late 1990's a growing number of urban water utility providers in Africa have adopted pre-paid water dispensers as a service delivery option for low-income areas within their service areas. Meanwhile, the use of such pre-paid technology for water delivery especially for the low-income consumer has been subject to debate in the water services sector. While one stream of literature mainly explores the potentials of the technology, a second stream focuses on the limits such technology presents, particularly for the low-income consumer. While acknowledging the contributions of both streams of literature on the debate on pre-paid dispensers in water services, this article explores why managers of water utilities adopt pre-paid dispensers for their operations in the low-income areas and how the technology is implemented in practice. Through a case study of two Kenyan cities (Nakuru and Kisumu), this article argues that in opting for pre-paid dispenser, the water utilities adopt a pragmatic approach, accepting solutions they may consider sub-optimal but which, at a particular moment and within a given context, may be the best they can do.

Leaving No One Behind: Prospects for User-Owned Urban Water Utilities in Kenya

Achieving universal access to basic services and safe and affordable water and sanitation to all by 2030, as targeted in Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 6, is of utmost importance in improving people’s well-being. In Kenya, this means fulfilling a significant water services gap. This study analyzed the viability of user-owned urban water utilities there from managers’ perspectives. It found that the high performance of the few licensed private utilities, high ownership and control, small size, robust public participation, and regulatory policies favor their performance. Yet, the costliness of water services production limits their viability in the most sidelined low-income areas. The article recommends (i) diversifying service production models, (ii) establishing a revolving fund to finance major capital investments, (iii) making full cost recovery a key policy objective, (iv) mobilizing financing from local users, including low-income earners, and (v) setting pricing structures that imply cross-subsidizing between the rich and poor.

The design of climate-adaptive water subsidies: financial incentives for urban water conservation in Morocco

Abstract In a 500-household pilot, we tested an innovative approach to water demand management, implemented in collaboration with a water utility in a large city in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We provided a novel intervention, called a Water Savings Credit (WSC), which granted participants volumetric rebates on their water bills for their reductions in water consumption. WSCs were effective at encouraging conservation in our pilot in Marrakech. Our approach has the benefits of a price incentive, without the political risk of a tariff increase. For urban water utilities that provide highly subsidized services, this approach could ultimately pay for itself, or potentially result in net financial savings. Our approach may be especially effective in the countries of the MENA region, as the region has a high rate of subsidization for water services, and because it is facing increasing water scarcity from economic growth, urbanization, and climate change.

Setting a Baseline Residential Water Demand Management Solution in Urban Towns of Ethiopia

Due to the country’s expanding population, inadequate urban water management practices, limited community knowledge of water management, and urbanization, urban water management in Ethiopia is of great importance to the administration of the country. This study draws on a qualitative and quantitative research approach to evaluate the available water supply resources and management techniques in three Ethiopian metropolitan districts, factor in the sustainability of the urban water supply services, and then recommend a workable plan for a sustainable urban water management system. Open-ended and semi-structured questionnaires were used to interview urban water utility officials to reveal important information on water demand management and current water supply services. Documented secondary data analysis and field observations are also used to identify the existing problem in order to draw future suggestions. The findings of this study indicate that some of the common issues with urban water supply systems in towns include outdated water supply infrastructures, rapid population growth and corresponding water demand, high water losses in the distribution system, poor water management practices, and a lack of appropriate institutional framework. The assessments of the three study regions demonstrate that while the percentage of water supply coverage hasn’t changed significantly over the previous 10 years, both the number of customers and the overall population growth have increased by nearly 50%. In order to address this, the Ethiopian government would need to put up a lot of effort into developing water use policies and raising consumer understanding of water demand management techniques.

Decoupling Urban Water Use from Population Growth in the Colorado River Basin

Decreases in river flows and rapidly declining reservoir levels pose grave water security risks to urban water utilities reliant upon the Colorado River Basin. This study evaluated multidecadal trends (2000–2020) in urban water use for 28 utilities with a combined service population of 23 million people that depend in part or wholly upon water supplies from the river and its tributaries. It was found that more than half of cities surveyed have substantially decoupled their water demands from population growth by greatly reducing their per capita water use. Total water deliveries to the cities surveyed dropped by 18% even though their combined service population increased by 24%. Median per capita water-use rates for total and residential use decreased by 30% and 28%, respectively. The most common water conservation strategies included toilet replacement rebates and other plumbing retrofits, variable water-pricing structures, and turf removal. Given considerable variability in total per capita water use and rate of per capita reductions, many cities should be able to substantially reduce water demands to attain the per capita water-use levels of top performers. In contrast with overall declines in water use, utilization of the Colorado River Basin as a water source has not declined but instead increased by 1%. These results suggest that opportunity may exist for reducing pressure on the Colorado River Basin if per capita water-use rates continue to decline and utilities increase their use of other water sources—including water reuse, desalination, and stormwater capture as well as other rivers and aquifers—that can be prioritized over the use of Colorado River supplies.

Impact of Public Service Quality on the Efficiency of the Water Industry: Evidence from 147 Cities in China

Nowadays, water service marketization has become a global trend, and the quality of public services has gradually become an important factor affecting the input and output of urban water utilities. This paper defines the connotation of service quality at the technical and public aspects innovatively, builds on the service quality system of water utilities, establishes the relationship between the quality and output efficiency model, and studies the impact of service quality on the efficiency of water utilities. Then, based on 147 cities’ water supply data during the 2005–2016 period in China, the data envelopment analysis model and Tobit panel data model were used in the empirical research to measure the efficiency characterized by the quality dimension. The results show that: (1) The service quality of the water industry is reflected in two aspects: technical and publicity. At the technical level, the service quality of the water industry can be represented by the supply capacity of water and infrastructure, and at the public level, by the penetration rate. (2) The overall comprehensive efficiency of urban water utilities in China is in the middle level of 0.5–0.7, the scale efficiency is at a high level of 0.8–1, and the pure technical efficiency is relatively low. The opportunity cost of maintaining service quality in China’s water sector is 5.21% of the potential output. (3) Public service quality is significantly positively correlated with the efficiency of China’s water utilities, and the improvement of service quality will promote the improvement of efficiency.

Sustainable Development and Efficiency Analysis of the Major Urban Water Utilities in Spain

In Spain, the water supply service is a municipal responsibility and in general is a sector without competitors. For this reason, an efficiency analysis attains greater significance. This study uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the efficiency of different urban water utilities. An extensive data search, where several variables such as the capital expenditure, the cost of material, or the labor have been recorded, has allowed evaluating the relative efficiency of the most important Spanish water distribution networks in using their resources. Furthermore, their sustainable efficiency has also been evaluated by including a variable representing the percentage of water losses. Results reveal the weaknesses of inefficient utilities and help to detect potential aspects that these companies should improve. For instance, there is an evident incorrect management of the costs of material by many urban water utilities, which does not happen with the labor. Additionally, the most efficient water utilities regarding the sustainable efficiency help to discover target percentages of water losses for the inefficient ones.

Storm water systems’ performance: assessment framework application to Portuguese water utilities

ABSTRACT Performance assessment is recognized as an important management tool for urban water systems. This article describes the application of a performance assessment framework for storm water systems, in collaboration with two Portuguese urban water utilities. A performance assessment system was built for each water utility, including objectives, assessment criteria and performance metrics. The results showed the existence of areas vulnerable to flooding occurrences and the need for investment in rehabilitation. The application of the performance assessment framework supports the identification of systems’ vulnerabilities and priorities for intervention. Opportunities and suggestions for improving data collection procedures are identified.

Power and Pathways: Exploring Robustness, Cooperative Stability, and Power Relationships in Regional Infrastructure Investment and Water Supply Management Portfolio Pathways

AbstractCooperative management of natural resources is a key component of a transition to a sustainable society and urban water supply planning is a prime example. Regional cooperation among urban water utilities is a powerful mechanism for improving supply reliability and financial stability in urban water supply systems. Through coordinated drought mitigation and joint infrastructure investment, water utilities can efficiently exploit existing water supplies and reduce or delay the need for new supply infrastructure. However, cooperative water management brings new challenges for planning and implementation. The benefits of cooperation may not be uniformly distributed across cooperating partners, resulting in the “instability” of cooperative compromises. Further, cooperation may add new vulnerabilities for each partner by imbuing their cooperating partners with the power to impact their performance through policy actions. Power imbalances stemming from these vulnerabilities can lead to conflict between cooperating partners that destabilize otherwise robust planning alternatives. This work contributes a new exploratory modeling centered framework for assessing cooperative stability and mapping power relationships in cooperative infrastructure investment and water supply management policies. Our framework uses multi‐objective optimization as an exploratory tool to discover how cooperating partners may be incentivized to defect from robust regional water supply partnerships and identifies how the actions of each regional partner shape the vulnerability of its cooperating partners. Our methodology is demonstrated on the Sedento Valley, a highly challenging hypothetical regional urban water supply benchmarking problem. Our results reveal complex regional power relationships between the region's cooperating partners and suggest ways to improve cooperative stability.

Efficiency of South African water utilities: a double bootstrap DEA analysis

ABSTRACT Although the efficiency of the water sector has been studied extensively utilizing data envelopment analysis (DEA), most of the literature tends to use the conventional DEA model to compute efficiency scores. In addition, there are many studies that undertake a second stage regression of the efficiency scores against a set of covariates. However, such second-stage analyses are problematic due to potential serial correlation inherent in the estimated efficiency scores. To determine the bias-corrected efficiency scores of rural and urban water utilities in South Africa, this study uses a robust, non-parametric DEA bootstrapping model to generate them. Moreover, little is known about relative performance of the conventional DEA versus bias-corrected DEA. In addition, the truncated double-bootstrap regression results provide insights into the drivers of efficiency, including how water policies and the political and institutional contexts of water utilities can impact relative efficiencies. We found that there are significant differences between the rankings and efficiency scores generated by the conventional DEA model compared to the double-bootstrap DEA model, for both urban and rural samples. The regression model found the location and the ratio of metered to unmetered connections to be significant determinants of efficiency for both urban and rural water utilities.

Efficient pathways to zero-carbon energy use by water supply utilities: an example from London, UK

Urban water utilities are increasing their use of energy-intensive technologies such as desalination and long-distanced pumped transfers. Under pressure to reduce their energy-related carbon emissions to zero, water utilities have devised a variety of energy management strategies, including the purchase of renewable energy and self-generation of electricity using locally installed renewables. These strategies will incur different costs for the utility, whilst some may have implications for the reliability of water supply systems. Yet the trade-offs between costs, water security and energy sustainability remain unexplored. Here, we present a regional scale analysis to test competing energy strategies, mapping pathways to zero carbon energy and water security. Results from a case-study of the London water system show a balanced approach that allows for some energy self-generation, using biogas, solar and wind, while also purchasing green energy credits from the electricity supply grid can best navigate this trade-off. Balanced investment plans can accommodate energy-intensive water supply techniques such as long-distance transfers, desalination and effluent reuse while meeting energy targets. By becoming energy generators and also adopting more flexible arrangements for energy use, water utilities could become significant players in energy markets.

Performance Assessment System to Wastewater Utilities Strategic Planning

Urban water utilities face growing challenges in compliance with increasingly demanding legislation, tightening budgets, ageing personnel, decreasing infrastructure reliability, increasing operational costs, regulatory pressure, and climate change. Within this context, tracking the alignment of the performance with the mission and strategic objectives of the organization, based on reliable and up-to-date data, is of utmost importance to enable effective and continual improvement management. Organizational performance assessment in the water sector has been a topic of growing attention since the 1990s due to the increase in the role of regulators and tighter legislation. Proactive utilities are incorporating sustainability, resource efficiency, resilience, and continual improvement principles in their practices. Strategic planning provides the road map for management and interconnecting the different areas of the organization. An essential component of strategic management planning is the adoption of a tailored performance assessment system (PAS), allowing a better response to these challenges from the water utility management perspective. This paper presents a novel PAS at the strategic level, which was tested and validated with wastewater utilities, in a co-creation process. The proposed PAS fully adopts the objectives recommended in international standards, with a corresponding set of criteria and metrics, and a validated proposal of reference values for the metrics.

Spatial Analysis of Urban Water Use Management in the Northern Border Region of Mexico

This paper estimates water price elasticity and examines spatial patterns of urban water management variables in 70 localities of more than 2 500 inhabitants of the six northern border Mexican states. By using ordinary least squares, spatial econometrics, Lagrange Multipliers, and exploratory spatial data analysis techniques, four variables were analyzed: water price (P), a Non-revenue water index (NRWI), total urban water connections, and water billed volume (BV). In accordance with the literature, we found that water demand is price sensitive but inelastic. Then price as an instrument for controlling water consumption does not offer an efficient alternative for reducing it, as water price increases would have to rise very high to reflect changes in consumption habits. Instead, it could be just a revenue-raising tool. Our findings also confirm a significant spatial autocorrelation in P and the NRWI. More interestingly, we found robust spatial effects on BV. This result implies that the performance of urban water utilities is determined by its counterparts' performance in the region. Given the results and characteristics of water resources in the region, we argue that management policies must consider a regional approach to be effective.