Kayaga-Smout_WaterLoss2007.pdf (102.58 kB)
Water loss management for utilities in low income countries: case studies from four African water utilities
The rapid increase in global population coupled with escalating climate change has led to
a serious water scarcity in the world. The problem is more pronounced in urban areas and
UN Habitat estimates that the proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas
had grown to at least 50% by early 2007. Therefore, instead of focusing on supply
management, urban water managers need to also adopt demand management. Water
loss management in the distribution network will not only reduce demand, but has other
important benefits. This paper describes a project by Water Utility Partnership (WUP) of
Africa whose objective was to reduce non-revenue water (NRW) in four water utilities in
sub-Saharan Africa. The project’s approach was based on the premise that NRW is only a
consequence of deep-seated utility management challenges. Hence, through capacitybuilding
partnerships, key staff in the participating utilities were facilitated to develop
performance improvement plans (PIPs), which included establishment of pilot District
Meter Areas (DMAs) for effective water loss management (WLM). The results of this
project show that iterative and incremental pilot WLM projects could be an effective way of
convincing uncertain senior managers of cash-trapped utilities in low income countries to
allocate more resources for water loss management.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Research Unit
- Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)
Citation
KAYAGA, S.M. and SMOUT, I.K., 2007. Water loss management for utilities in low income countries: case studies from four African water utilities. Water Loss 2007: Conference Proceedings, Vol. 2, Bucharest, Romania, 23rd-26th September, pp. 423-433.Publisher
International Water Association (IWA)Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2007Notes
This is a conference paper.ISBN
9789737681263Publisher version
Language
- en
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