Based on statistical analyses of a dataset created from the California Urban Water
Conservation Council (CUWCC) website, this study confirms some familiar but not
widely-applied perceptions that include: water-loss management programs can increase revenue and
save resources during a relatively short payback period; metering systems are a very
important tool for water management including water-loss control; big systems are likely
to lose more water in the distribution systems; and, water rate systems can be an effective
policy tool in encouraging water conservation and discouraging water waste and loss. This study tests the following two hypotheses in an empirical model.
Hypothesis 1: the more expenditures on water-loss control, the less water lost.
Hypothesis 2: the quantity of water loss is likely to be a function of various factors such
as system size, population served, water rates, production costs, customer mix, metering
rate, water produced, and other operational factors. This study calculates water loss by subtracting the sum of metered sales (revenue
water) and other system verifiable uses (authorized uses) from total supply into the
system (total water produced). To test the hypotheses, this study analyzes a model, using linear regression. The
model is the following:
dependent variable = amount of water loss;
independent variables = expenditures on leak-control programs, miles of
distribution system, service area population, total number of accounts metered, total
number of accounts un-metered, revenue from volumetric rates/ total deliveries per
customer type (residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, and irrigation). Includes 7 references, tables, figure.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 590 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 5 |
| Published : | 06/17/2005 |
