Search results for "Water industry"
showing 9 items of 29 documents
A composite indicator index as a proxy for measuring the quality of water supply as perceived by users for urban water services
2021
Abstract The objective of this study is to develop a composite indicator (CI) to measure the quality of water supply based on the variables that are considered to affect users’ perceptions of water supply quality. The proposed CI includes six relevant aspects that determine users’ perceptions of water supply quality (network quality, water quality, water price, complaints, inconvenience caused by upgrading the network, and continuity of service) in a simple, economical, and objective way, using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) with weights based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). The CI was applied to 32 municipalities in the metropolitan area of Valencia (Spain). The results show t…
Does service quality matter in measuring the performance of water utilities?
2008
Abstract Quality is a dimension of water services that has been repeatedly omitted in the study of performance of water utilities. In this paper, Data Envelopment Analysis techniques are used to compute both conventional quantity-based and quality-adjusted scores of technical efficiency for a sample of Spanish water utilities. The key assumptions are that a lack of quality (bad quality) can be regarded as a bad output and the existence of a trade-off between quantity and quality. Our main results indicate that quality matters in measuring technical efficiency, the difference between conventional and quality-adjusted evaluations representing the opportunity cost of maintaining quality. Avera…
Estimating the cost of improving service quality in water supply: A shadow price approach for England and wales
2015
Service quality to customers is an aspect that cannot be ignored in the performance assessment of water companies. Nowadays water regulators introduce awards or penalties to incentivize companies to improve service quality to customers when setting prices. In this study, the directional distance function is employed to estimate the shadow prices of variables indicating the lack of service quality to customers in the water industry i.e., written complaints, unplanned interruptions and properties below the reference level. To calculate the shadow price of each undesirable output for each water company, it is needed to ascribe a reference price for the desirable output which is the volume of w…
Accounting for service quality to customers in the efficiency of water companies: evidence from England and Wales
2015
This paper investigates the role of service quality to customers in the efficiency assessment of water companies in England and Wales. To achieve this, data envelopment analysis techniques are employed to compute the technical efficiency of the water companies following two approaches: (i) traditional assessment based on quantity variables (without the inclusion of service quality variables) and (ii) alternative assessment considering quantity and service quality variables as undesirable outputs. The analysis covers 22 water and sewerage companies and water only companies providing drinking water services. The results indicate that the traditional efficiency assessment reveals a high level …
Impact of external costs of unplanned supply interruptions on water company efficiency: Evidence from Chile
2020
Abstract Conventional performance assessments of water companies ignore the external costs due to water supply outages. To overcome this gap, we evaluate the impact of external costs of unplanned supply interruptions on the efficiency of water companies. Two efficiency metrics, internal technical efficiency (ITE), and total technical efficiency (TTE), were estimated based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). The results evidence that the external costs of unplanned water supply interruptions impact, on average, 7.9% of the efficiency of water companies. We also explored the impact of a set of environmental variables on water company efficiency.
The Wastewater – A Problem of Integrated Urban Water Management
2013
Abstract In order to live the man uses various generating resources through waste products his work. Use of water resources causes many types of wastewater, depending on the type of household consumption, industrial or city. Integrated management of water resources represents practical ways in which sustainable development is achieved in the field of water, including wastewater management, and is also the responsibility of all interested parties: the state, local communities, users, operators and NGOs waters. The present study shows the role and the importance of integrated management of urban water. The steps to be followed in establishing wastewater management are trying highlighting new …
Water transfer from Basilicata to Puglia: a technical, economic and institutional challenge
2007
The necessity of supplying Puglia by transfer of water resources from Basilicata (250 Mm/year mainly for civil use but also for agricultural and industrial uses) and another bordering region (Campania for 200 Mm/year only for civil use) arises from the scarcity of water resources inside Puglia, where precipitation is very low (400 mm/year), rivers are few and with limited watersheds and costal aquifers are overexploited with salt intrusion. Moreover recent droughts have pointed out the need for revising water supply policy in Puglia, looking for the increment of the transfer of water resources from Basilicata (50 Mm/year) and Campania (32 Mm/year) and the development of feasibility studies …
Assessing the efficiency of Chilean water and sewerage companies accounting for uncertainty
2016
Abstract Efficiency assessment of water and sewerage companies (WaSCs) has attracted considerable attention both for water company managers and water regulators. Within the methodological approaches that can be applied to estimate efficiency scores, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is the most widely applied technique. In spite of the positive features of DEA, it presents a major drawback which is its deterministic nature. In other words, conventional DEA models do not account for uncertainty in the data. To overcome this limitation, we assess, for the first time, the efficiency of a sample of Chilean WaSCs by using a DEA model with statistical tolerance in the data. Hence, 81 efficiency sco…
Modelling of Water Supply Costs
2017
Water supply tariffs setting is a labour intensive regulatory procedure; currently number of informative and procedural shortages and problems exist. The aim of the current research is improvement of methodology for determination of the substantiated costs for provision of water services. A working hypothesis was advanced to modernize the methodology: the specific costs (/m3) required for the provision of water services in a specific region is a variable multi-parameter function of key performance indicators. There is preferred a benchmark modelling procedure, which is based on the factual cases (declared indicators of water utilities) and synthesis of the general regularity. The model is d…