An Innovative Approach For Non-Revenue Water Management

In recent years, the reduction of water losses has become a burning issue within the water industry and utilities, either for financial or ecological reasons, are under increasing pressure to enhance resource efficiency. However, practitioners know that assessing and monitoring the performance of water loss reduction programs is a real challenge, and what at first may sound like a simple task, in practice turns out to be a rather complex undertaking.

Until now, the performance-improvement and operational change regarding water loss reduction programs have been measured by reference to principal technical components such as Authorized Billed Consumption, Unbilled Authorized Consumption, Apparent Losses or Real Losses, which are the main components of the well-known international approach for water balance calculations developed by IWA Task Force. While such components are certainly important criterions with regard to overall performance improvement, the outcome of many water loss reduction programs still remains questionable and well behind expectations. Only lately has it been recognized that the institutional environment and culture of a utility is a key factor for successful NRW management and the sustainability of water supply and sanitation services.

Recent field work by MACS Energy & Water - an international consulting company based in Germany specializing in water as well as energy efficiency and renewable energy - has proven that emphasizing effective infrastructure optimization and institutional development can ensure lasting effectiveness of improvement programs aimed at operational performance. This is achieved through high-impact change management plans in accordance with strong water loss management strategies.

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Taxonomy

• Modeling
• Industrial Water Treatment