Insights and challenges of efficient water service provision and management

  • 640 Views
  • 156 Downloads

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

There is a growing need to understand how the scarce water resources could be conserved and efficiently provided to the local societies. This paper examines the non-revenue water management practices in the local municipality and its impact on water service provision. The results of the study indicated that the municipality does not have sufficient capability to monitor and manage water provision and usage. Almost half of the respondents thought that the municipality does not take non-revenue water management seriously. The results suggest that the local water service provider operations and approaches to non-revenue water management is a real threat to the local government and society. The municipality needs to be proactively involved in the efforts to adapt to practices and mitigation strategies to reduce non-revenue water.

view full abstract hide full abstract
    • Fig. 1. NRW circle
    • Fig. 2. The IWA best practice standard water balance
    • Fig. 3. KwaZulu-Natal map
    • Fig. 4. Respondents views on NRW assessment methods and management policies
    • Fig. 5. Respondents’ views on the effectiveness of the NRW municipal policies
    • Fig. 6. Cause of illegal connections
    • Fig. 7. Perception towards water usage
    • Table 1. Gender distribution by age
    • Table 2. Water conservation
    • AL-Washali, T. M, AL­Omari, A., & Lars Ribbe, L. (2011). Non­Revenue Water Management in Sana’a Water Distribution System (Unpublished Master’s dissertation). Faculty of Graduate Studies, The University of Jordan.
    • Auditor General. (2009). 2008/2009 uMgungundlovu District Municipality Audit report. Pietermaritzburg.
    • Berhad, Ranhill Utilities, & USAID. (2008). The Manager’s Non-Revenue Water Handbook. Bangkok: United State Agency for International Development.
    • Charalambous, B., & Hamilton, S. (2011). Water balance - the next stage. Water utility journal, 3-10.
    • Department of Water Affairs. (2012). Municipal Water Services Performance Assessment 2012 report. Pretoria: Department of Water Affairs.
    • Farley, M., & Liemberger, R. (2004). Developing a Non­Revenue Water Reduction Strategy, Part 2: Planning and Implementing the Strategy. Conference Proceedings, IWA World Water Congress, 19-24 September, 2004, Marrakech.
    • Frauendorfer, R., & Liemberger, R. (2010). The Issues and Challenges of Reducing Non-Revenue Water. Mandaluyong: Asian Development Bank.
    • Kingdom, B., Liemberger, R., & Marin, P. (2006). The Challenge of Reducing NRW in developing countries. IWA Leakage 2005 Conference (pp. 1-42). Halifax: The World bank.
    • Klooster, P. M., & Visser, M. D. T. (2008). Comparing two image research instruments: The Q-sort method versus the Likert attitude questionnaire. Food Quality and Preference, 19, 511-518.
    • Mckenzie, R., Siqalaba, Z., & Wegelin, W. (2012). The state of Non Revenue Water in South Africa. Pretoria: Water research commision.
    • Pickard, B. D., Vilagos, J., Nestel, G. K., Fernandez, R., Kuhr, S., & Lanning, D. (2008). Reducing Non-RevenueWater:A Myriad of Challenges. Florida water resource journal, 26-32.
    • Puust R., Kapelan Z., Savic D., & Koppel, T. (2010), A review of methods for leakage management in pipe networks. Urban Water Journal, 7(1), 25­45.
    • Rabe, M., Maree, D., Ramano, R., & Price, G. (2012). Compendium of water conservation and water demand management interventions and measures at the municipal level in South Africa. Pretoria: Water research commision.
    • uMgungundlovu District Municipality. (2010). 5 year strategic management plan for reduction of Non-Revenue Water in the uMgungundlovu District Municipality. Pietermaritzburg.
    • United State Agency for International Development. (2013). Water and Development Strategy. Washington: USAID.
    • Water loss task force. (2004). DMA guidance notes. Cyprus: IWA.
    • Vermersch, M., & Rizzo, A. (2008). An Action Planning Model to control for Non-revenue water.
    • Walter, T., Kloos, J., Tsegai, D. W. (2011).
Options for improving water use efficiency under worsening scarcity: Evidence from the Middle Olifants Sub-Basin in South Africa. Water SA, 37(3), 357-370.
    • Western Australian General Practice Network. (2008). Toolkit Staff surveys of awareness and satisfaction with Divisions IM process and systems. Divisions of General Practice, Information Management Maturity Framework, Bentley, Western Australia.
    • Wyatt, A. S. (2010). Non-Revenue Water: Financial Model for Optimal Management in Developing Countries. North Carolina: RTI International.
    • Zaier, H. (2010). The management by the skills factor of performance and development in water companies. In 3rd ACWUA Best Practices Conference (pp. 27-28). Morocco: UNW-DPC, Bonn, Germany.
Related Articles

  • Perceptions of the financial sustainability of an indigent policy in a selected municipality in the western cape, South Africa

    Robert SchultzORCID , Rozenda Hendrickse doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.16(2).2018.02
    Problems and Perspectives in Management Volume 16, 2018         Issue #2         pp. 12-22 Views: 1617 Downloads: 187 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    The eradication of poverty is an important priority for the South African government. The Constitution makes provision for vulnerable households and, therefore, local government has to develop policies to address the needs of the poor. Municipalities developed and adopted Indigent Policies to ensure that the poor households have access to essential basic services. This led the researcher to investigate what challenges are related to the financial sustainability of the Indigent Policy in its implementation process at the City of Cape Town for the period from 2003 to 2016. This study followed a qualitative research approach. Data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews. The participants were selected, because they had access to the most recent information that relates to the Indigent Policy. The researcher respected the rights of participants by allowing them the freedom to withdraw at any stage of the research study, ensuring confidentiality, ensuring anonymity, ensuring fair treatment and protecting the participants from any harm and discomfort throughout the research study. The researcher is of the opinion that all of the respondents are confident that the Indigent Policy is sustainable. However, should it become too expensive for the City of Cape Town to maintain the Indigent Policy, it could result in the budget of some other services being reprioritized. It is recommended that the City of Cape Town develops a beneficiary system for qualified indigents to allow them to receive additional benefits from other City of Cape Town facilities such as libraries, swimming pools and the MyCiTi bus services.

  • Fiscal attractiveness of Portuguese municipalities

    Ricardo de Moraes e SoaresORCID , Pedro PinheiroORCID doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/pmf.12(2).2023.01
    Public and Municipal Finance Volume 12, 2023         Issue #2         pp. 1-16 Views: 528 Downloads: 310 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    The modeling of the municipalities’ tax burden is one of the most relevant issues, especially in terms of municipal competitiveness. It challenges the definition and delimitation of local authorities’ taxing powers. This study aims to analyze the level of taxation of Portuguese municipalities and how local policies contribute to the definition of a ranking of fiscally more competitive municipalities. The paper applies quantitative methods based on the fiscal information made available by municipalities. It has been determined that it is possible to classify municipalities as more or less competitive through their tax supply, mainly at the level of their ability to set tax rates. In 2021, compared to 2020, the most fiscally competitive municipalities were located in the Autonomous Region of the Azores (Corvo (95.128%); Vila do Pico (95.128%); Madalena (95.128%); Povoação (95.078%); Santa Cruz das Flores (95.072%); Angra do Heroísmo (95.044%); Nordeste (95.036%); Vila Franca do Campo (95.036%); Horta (95.017%); and Ponta Delgada (95.017%)). The study also verified the maintenance of fiscal competitiveness among the most fiscally attractive municipalities, despite having several types of fiscal attraction policy options at their disposal, always conditioned by national legislation. This means fiscal policy is an instrument of competition for attracting companies, people, and productive investment to local municipalities. The existence of an international dogma favorable to the increasing attribution of administrative and financial autonomy to local authorities mainly supports this phenomenon.

Download Preview
Close
Environmental Economics
Environmental Economics