water utility Articles
-
The performance of water utilities in Jordan
This paper aims to measure the relative performance of Jordan's water utilities for water sector (WS) and wastewater sector (WWS), and to investigate the major factors behind their inefficiencies. DEA (non-parametric method) and Tobit model (parametric method) were used at two stages. At the first stage DEA was used to evaluate the utilities' efficiency and to investigate the utilities' scale ...
-
Case study - Lee County Water Utilities (LCWU)
Location: Fort MYers, FL System Applied: PW1010 – Visuron Technologies, Inc. Substrate / Area: Metal tank primary containment Date Completed: July 2002 Project Description Lee County Water Utilities (LCWU) needed to re-coat launderer in their clarifier. The multiply layer of paint was failing after 1 year of resurfacing. Polyurea N.S.F. was chosen because of its rapid return to service ...
-
Can regulation improve the performance of government-controlled water utilities?
This paper provides evidence on whether regulation can improve the performance of government-controlled water utilities. While other studies have examined whether private participation combined with regulation can improve the performance of government-controlled water utilities, there has been little research on whether regulation alone can improve performance.This paper examines five case ...
-
Economic effects of the consolidation of water utilities in Japan
Water utilities are affected by economies of scale. However, in Japan most water utilities are small-scale water services. Therefore, they face enormous difficulties in terms of financial and personnel resources. To take advantage of economies of scale, the consolidation of water utilities has been promoted since 1965 by Japanese water authorities. The measure has been successful to some ...
-
The 21st Century Water Utility Initiative: how to boost operational performance of water utilities by up to 20%
The 21st Century Water Utility Initiative is a powerful and innovative approach to help water utilities assess their current operational performance, identify improvement actions and track impact year after year. First success cases suggest that cost reductions range from 10 to 20% within 1–3 years, with improved customer satisfaction. This approach can help water utilities in ...
-
Determining the optimal investment plan for water utilities: the case of Veolia Water Central
Water utilities face difficult choices in how most efficiently to plan for investments that best meet the needs of their customer base. An obvious interest of water utilities is thus to optimise their investment planning to obtain the maximum possible benefits for the costs accrued by the investments. The objective of this article is to demonstrate an approach for a water utility to determine the ...
-
Smart Water Management: problems and solutions
The SODA platform is open, non-proprietary with no lock-in. A layer in the platform allows Water Utilities to pick and choose solutions that are applicable to their requirements. This also gives smart network providers/data providers more opportunity to sell into Water Utilities gaining exposure. The Smart Water Modules are from experts throughout the water industry. ...
By Red Skies
-
Water utility telemetry systems - interesting times ahead?
Untitled Document Real time telemetry systems are key to Water Utilities’ efforts to meet Amp4 efficiency demands. Across the businesses, decisions increasingly need real time information, and making the best decisions efficiently will generate savings. But this is a long way from the traditional role of telemetry systems. Can they stretch to meet the ...
By WRC Ltd
-
The most efficient clusters of Brazilian water companies
Usually water utilities provide their services under natural monopoly, with few incentives to become efficient, therefore affecting customers in the form of expensive tariffs. Hence, it is extremely important to find out the sources of inefficiency. The present study aims to identify the most efficient water utility groups in Brazil. For this purpose, a robust non-parametric method was ...
-
An exploratory approach for evaluating the energy and personnel share of operation and maintenance costs for water utilities in selected emerging economies of Europe
This study provides an analysis of specific performance indicators for water utilities in four countries, Albania, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The annual operational and staff cost indicators from records of the IBNET database have been analysed. Statistical analysis indicates significant differences between the fraction of energy and labour operational costs among the countries studied. Some ...
-
Performance of Portuguese water utilities: how do ownership, size, diversification and vertical integration relate to efficiency?
This research applies the stochastic frontier analysis benchmarking method to measure the performance of the water sector in Portugal. It estimates a multiproduct translog cost function in order to study the efficiency of the water and sewerage services, using an unbalanced panel comprising 68 Portuguese water utilities for the biennium 2004–2005. The sample is formed by concessionaire companies, ...
-
Governance, strategy and efficiency of water utilities: the Italian case
The determinants of the performance of water utilities are a topical issue worldwide. This paper analyzes the relationship between efficiency and corporate governance in Italian water utilities, measured through data envelopment analysis. Using an M-quantile regression model, efficiency estimations are ranked considering relevant governance (board size and composition; firm size) and strategy ...
-
Optimising the water sector market structure in Portugal
This paper investigates the market structure of the water sector in Portugal through the application of distinct methods usually used in the literature (parametric and nonparametric methods). A sample of Portuguese water utilities was used to search for economies of scale and economies of scope in the period 2002–2008. High economies of vertical integration, economies of scale and ...
-
Facilitating organisational learning to support decision making and planning for sustainability in the water sector
This paper investigates the process of organisational learning in decision making and planning for sustainability in the water sector. A Melbourne water utility (Yarra Valley Water) trialling sustainable systems of service provision utilised multi-stakeholder experiences to facilitate learning within the organisation. Diverse perspectives of the trial were sought through 50 interviews with ...
-
Case Study – Water Utility
Sweetwater Authority, CA Sweetwater Authority’s mission is to provide its current and future customers with a safe, reliable and affordable water supply through the use of the best available technology, sound management practices, public participation and a balanced approach to human and environmental needs. Application Sweetwater regularly assesses water quality. This is done by testing ...
-
Civil society: a revived mantra in the development discourse
There is an assumption that the inclusion of civil society in governance processes promotes democratic performance and contributes to ‘good governance’, in the sense of pluralism, accountability and transparency. This paper refers to the governance process of the water utility in Accra involving the private sector, and examines the validity of the assumed roles regarding the inclusion of civil ...
-
Greta and the Great Water Utility Performance Conundrum
Has She Only Gone and Done It? Call me a free marketeer if you must, but I do like a good bit of competition to compel improved performance. Adam Smith (he of the “Wealth of Nations” and “invisible hand” fame) perhaps said it best: Smith was pretty on the money about the role of Government in competitive markets too: ...
By Syrinix Ltd
-
Consolidation of municipality-owned water suppliers in Japan
This study examines the characteristics of municipalities owning water utilities that took advantage of incentives provided by the Japanese government to consolidate. We find that economies of scale and government transfers were some of the main factors leading to consolidation of government services. This is expected given the Central Government's efforts to equalize public service levels, ...
-
Topic: Benchmarking and Performance Indicators
One of the important ways organizations, evaluate the effectiveness of a process or activity is by defining and using some performance measures. These measures could be quantitative or qualitative but should be clearly defined, easy to use and understand, technically sound, be able to measure trends over time, and be relevant to the users—in this case water utility operational staff and ...
-
National monitoring of water utility performance in France
Performance assessment has recently been applied to water utilities in France. Performance indicators (PIs) were initially developed as an aid to the control of public service delegation by local authorities. After a long process, a group of PIs was integrated into mandatory annual reports on service quality and price, in order to better inform utility users and reinforce the regulation of the ...
Need help finding the right suppliers? Try XPRT Sourcing. Let the XPRTs do the work for you