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1
Gay, Alanis Leon F. "Measuring Energy Efficiency of Water Utilities." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34231.
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Water infrastructure systems worldwide use large amounts of energy to operate. Energy efficiency efforts are relevant because even relatively small gains in efficiency have the potential to bring significant benefits to these utilities in terms of financial savings and enhanced sustainability and resiliency. In order to achieve higher efficiency levels, energy usage must be measured and controlled.
A common tool used to measure energy efficiency in water utilities and perform comparisons between utilities is metric benchmarking. Energy benchmarking scores are intended to measure how efficient water systems are among their peers, in a simple and accurate fashion. Although many different benchmarking methods are currently used, we chose to use the segregated benchmarking scores proposed by Carlson on his research report from 2007 (Carlson, 2007).
The research objective is to improve these production energy use and treatment energy use benchmarking scores by analyzing the systemâ s particular characteristics that might skew the results, such as topology, water loss and raw water quality. We propose that benchmarking metrics should be always used within a particular context for each specific utility being analyzed. A complementary score (Thermodynamic Score) was developed to provide context on how energy efficient is the utility not only compared with other utilities, but also compared with the potential maximum efficiency the utility can reach itself.
We analyzed eight utilities from Virginia to obtain production and treatment energy use benchmarking scores and also thermodynamic scores using the minimum required energy approach. Benchmarking scores were skewed in 50% of the studied utilities. This means that benchmarking scores should never be used as a black box. The thermodynamic score proved to be useful for measurement of energy efficiency of a water utility on its production phase. In addition, some utilities can detect significant financial saving opportunities using the minimum required energy analysis for production operations.Master of Science
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Park, Hyun Jung. "A study to develop strategies for proactive water-loss management." Diss., unrestricted, 2006. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-06252007-125732/.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006.Title from file title page. Mary Beth Walker, committee chair; Ronald G. Cummings, Douglas S. Noonan, Bryan G. Norton, William L. Waugh, committee members. Electronic text (144 p. : ill. (some col.)) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Nov. 29, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-144).
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Hurlbut, David. "Irrigation for sale : a case study of water marketing and conservation in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Topaloglu, Ece. "Privatization Of Water Utilities From And Integrated Water Resources Management Perspective." Master's thesis, METU, 2008. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12609172/index.pdf.
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This submission reviews the two successful examples of water markets, one in the developed world, the Murray Darling Basin in Australia and other in the developing world, the Limari Basin case in Chile respectively. Of central importance, we find the commodification of a natural resource, water, through a process of the progressing neoliberal agenda. As regards the outcome of this process in these two caseswhile on the one hand the water markets have contributed to a more efficient allocation of water resources from less efficient to more efficient uses, on the other hand, problems related to environmental degradation in the former case and the social inequity in the latter have been unable to be solved.
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Uhlmann, Vikki. "An approach to sustainability management for water utilities /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2004. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe19069.pdf.
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Chanpiwat, Pattanun. "Quantitative Approach to Select Energy Benchmarking Parameters for Drinking Water Utilities." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/64201.
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Energy efficiency is currently a hot topic on all regional, national, and global stages. Accurate measurements on how energy is being used over a period of time can improve performance of the drinking water utility substantially and reduce energy consumption. Nevertheless, the drinking water industry does not have a specific benchmarking practice to evaluate its energy performance of the system. Therefore, there are no standards to compare energy use between water utilities that have a variety of system characteristics. The goal of this research is to develop quantitative approach to select energy benchmarking parameters of the water system, so the drinking water utilities can use those parameters to improve their energy efficiency. In addition to a typical benchmarking of drinking water utilities, the energy benchmarking can specifically compare energy efficiency of a utility with other utilities nationwide.
The research developed a regression model based on the statistical representation of the energy use and descriptive characteristics of the drinking water utilities data throughout the U.S. Methodologies to eliminate singularity and multicollinearity from collinear survey dataset are discussed. The all possible regressions were chosen as parameters selection methodology to identify a subset of most significant parameters, i.e. system characteristics, that can mathematically correspond to energy use across different utilities. As a result, the energy benchmarking would be able to calculate the predicted total energy use of the system from given system characteristics.Master of Science
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Brighu, Urmila. "Asset management in urban water utilities : case study in India." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2008. http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/4420.
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Access to safe and sufficient drinking water and adequate sanitation are now recognized as basic human rights. One Millennium Development Goal is to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. However, ensuring sustainability of existing and new services is considered to be one of the major challenges for the water sector in the years to come. In India, in addition to service expansion, existing water service quality has been observed to be deteriorating over recent years. There is therefore an equally urgent need to address sustainability and improvement of service quality to the presently served population. In this low-income country, where water utilities are unable to recover even the service costs of operations and minor maintenance through user charges, there is a need to determine ways and means to be able to maintain a cost-effective service to consumers. For such a capital intensive service these ways have to include not only the introduction of efficiency measures but also the long-term planning of capital maintenance, that is the maintenance of the fixed assets upon which services depend. Water utilities in high-income countries have been using various fixed asset management techniques to improve asset operational efficiency, to plan capital maintenance and to demonstrate their ability to maintain and improve service to their customers. This study explores the viability of the application of asset management techniques and their potential contribution towards improving water service provision in urban centres in India. Following a literature review, a generic asset management model for a low-income country water utility was developed and then applied in the water utility serving Jaipur, Rajasthan to assess the viability of this adaptation. Having identified strengths and weaknesses during this fieldwork a revised model was proposed, including distinct phases of asset management/data intensity, which could be used as a generic approach in large urban centres in India. Following consultations with prospective users in six States, the study showed that it is feasible to take a first step towards asset management at low cost but this will require a change in the management approach. The study identified lack of relevant data as a key factor influencing an effective and comprehensive application of a generic asset management model. The study concludes that the proposed phased asset management models can contribute to improving serviceability for customers; however the concern that remains is the willingness of the organisation to adapt to the necessary changes.
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Coulibaly, Housseini. "Drinking water quality and management strategies in small Quebec utilities." Thesis, Université Laval, 2003. http://www.theses.ulaval.ca/2003/21382/21382.pdf.
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La présente thèse porte sur une étude des petits systèmes municipaux du Québec (en l’occurrence, ceux desservant 10 000 personnes ou moins) et comporte trois volets. Le premier volet se focalise sur un portrait historique de la qualité de l’eau distribuée et sur les stratégies de gestion. Parallèlement, il met l'historique de la qualité et les stratégies de gestion en relation avec certains paramètres importants de la qualité de l’eau. Les résultats de ce volet montrent que pour les systèmes s’approvisionnant en eau de surface et pratiquant uniquement une chloration, la différence entre le nombre annuel moyen de rinçages des systèmes ayant connu des problèmes de qualité et ceux n’ayant pas connu de tels problèmes s’est avérée statistiquement significative. En plus, certains indicateurs de la pression agricole sur le territoire des municipalités concernées apparurent significativement corrélés avec les épisodes de coliformes. Le deuxième volet porte sur une étude de la variation spatio-temporelle de la qualité de l’eau dans dix petits systèmes. Ces systèmes furent répartis en deux groupes : quatre systèmes qui n’ont jamais ou ont rarement distribué de l’eau dérogeant aux normes microbiologiques provinciales relatives à l’eau potable et six systèmes qui ont très souvent dérogé auxdites normes. Les résultats montrent que les différences entre les deux groupes de systèmes sont essentiellement imputables aux teneurs en chlore résiduel libre et au nombre de colonies de bactéries hétérotrophes aérobies et anaérobies facultatives (BHAA) dans les réseaux de distribution correspondants et, dans une moindre mesure, aux doses de chlore appliquées. Le troisième volet inclut trois parties : la première est un portait des caractéristiques d’opération, de l’infrastructure et de la maintenance ; la deuxième est consacrée au développement d’indicateurs de performance pour les petits systèmes ; alors que la troisième traite des facteurs humains et organisationnels. Le portrait a révélé des tendances intéressantes qui ont presque toutes été confirmées par les indicateurs de performance des systèmes de distribution. Les facteurs humains et organisationnels dégagèrent des aspects tels que les antécédents scolaires, la formation complémentaire, l’expérience, la bonne conscience des nouveaux défis, le niveau de préparation pour y faire face, et l’appui des autorités locales. Dans son ensemble, cette recherche aura permis de procéder à une étude exhaustive des stratégies de gestion de la qualité de l’eau potable généralement mises de l’avant par les gestionnaires de petits systèmes et de développer des outils explicatifs pouvant guider utilement leur action, de même que celle des gestionnaires relevant des divers paliers gouvernementaux.This thesis presents a study of small Quebec municipal utilities (i.e., serving 10,000 people or fewer) and includes three chapters. The first chapter focuses on a portrait of historical quality of distributed water and on management strategies. Concurrently, it puts historical quality and management strategies in relation to certain important water quality parameters. Results show that for surface water utilities using chlorination alone, the mean difference of annual system flushings between utilities that have experienced difficulties with historical quality and those not having experienced such difficulties proved statistically significant. In addition, some agricultural land-use indicators within the municipal territory appeared significantly correlated with coliform occurrences. The second chapter studies the spatial and temporal variation of drinking water quality in ten small utilities. These utilities were divided into two groups: four utilities that had never or rarely served water violating the provincial drinking water microbiological standards and six utilities that very often infringed upon said standards. Results show that the differences between the two groups of utilities are associated essentially with maintained chlorine residuals and heterotrophic plate count bacteria populations in corresponding distribution systems and, to a lesser extent, to the applied chlorine doses. The study includes three distinctive parts: the first one is a portrait of studied utilities’ operational, infrastructure, and maintenance characteristics; the second part is devoted to development of indicators of performance for the same utilities, whereas the last part deals with human and organisational factors. The portrait revealed interesting trends, most of which had been confirmed by utility performance indicators. As for human and organizational factors, they allowed highlighting such issues like educational background, supplementary training, experience, awareness of and preparedness to take up new challenges, and support from local authorities. Overall, this research enabled a thorough investigation of management strategies the most popular with small drinking water utilities and the development of explanatory tools that may usefully guide action from local managers and government bodies.
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Coulibaly, Housseini Diadié. "Drinking water quality and management strategies in small Quebec utilities." Doctoral thesis, Université Laval, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11794/17867.
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La présente thèse porte sur une étude des petits systèmes municipaux du Québec (en l’occurrence, ceux desservant 10 000 personnes ou moins) et comporte trois volets. Le premier volet se focalise sur un portrait historique de la qualité de l’eau distribuée et sur les stratégies de gestion. Parallèlement, il met l'historique de la qualité et les stratégies de gestion en relation avec certains paramètres importants de la qualité de l’eau. Les résultats de ce volet montrent que pour les systèmes s’approvisionnant en eau de surface et pratiquant uniquement une chloration, la différence entre le nombre annuel moyen de rinçages des systèmes ayant connu des problèmes de qualité et ceux n’ayant pas connu de tels problèmes s’est avérée statistiquement significative. En plus, certains indicateurs de la pression agricole sur le territoire des municipalités concernées apparurent significativement corrélés avec les épisodes de coliformes. Le deuxième volet porte sur une étude de la variation spatio-temporelle de la qualité de l’eau dans dix petits systèmes. Ces systèmes furent répartis en deux groupes : quatre systèmes qui n’ont jamais ou ont rarement distribué de l’eau dérogeant aux normes microbiologiques provinciales relatives à l’eau potable et six systèmes qui ont très souvent dérogé auxdites normes. Les résultats montrent que les différences entre les deux groupes de systèmes sont essentiellement imputables aux teneurs en chlore résiduel libre et au nombre de colonies de bactéries hétérotrophes aérobies et anaérobies facultatives (BHAA) dans les réseaux de distribution correspondants et, dans une moindre mesure, aux doses de chlore appliquées. Le troisième volet inclut trois parties : la première est un portait des caractéristiques d’opération, de l’infrastructure et de la maintenance ; la deuxième est consacrée au développement d’indicateurs de performance pour les petits systèmes ; alors que la troisième traite des facteurs humains et organisationnels. Le portrait a révélé des tendances intéressantes qui ont presque toutes été confirmées par les indicateurs de performance des systèmes de distribution. Les facteurs humains et organisationnels dégagèrent des aspects tels que les antécédents scolaires, la formation complémentaire, l’expérience, la bonne conscience des nouveaux défis, le niveau de préparation pour y faire face, et l’appui des autorités locales. Dans son ensemble, cette recherche aura permis de procéder à une étude exhaustive des stratégies de gestion de la qualité de l’eau potable généralement mises de l’avant par les gestionnaires de petits systèmes et de développer des outils explicatifs pouvant guider utilement leur action, de même que celle des gestionnaires relevant des divers paliers gouvernementaux.This thesis presents a study of small Quebec municipal utilities (i.e., serving 10,000 people or fewer) and includes three chapters. The first chapter focuses on a portrait of historical quality of distributed water and on management strategies. Concurrently, it puts historical quality and management strategies in relation to certain important water quality parameters. Results show that for surface water utilities using chlorination alone, the mean difference of annual system flushings between utilities that have experienced difficulties with historical quality and those not having experienced such difficulties proved statistically significant. In addition, some agricultural land-use indicators within the municipal territory appeared significantly correlated with coliform occurrences. The second chapter studies the spatial and temporal variation of drinking water quality in ten small utilities. These utilities were divided into two groups: four utilities that had never or rarely served water violating the provincial drinking water microbiological standards and six utilities that very often infringed upon said standards. Results show that the differences between the two groups of utilities are associated essentially with maintained chlorine residuals and heterotrophic plate count bacteria populations in corresponding distribution systems and, to a lesser extent, to the applied chlorine doses. The study includes three distinctive parts: the first one is a portrait of studied utilities’ operational, infrastructure, and maintenance characteristics; the second part is devoted to development of indicators of performance for the same utilities, whereas the last part deals with human and organisational factors. The portrait revealed interesting trends, most of which had been confirmed by utility performance indicators. As for human and organizational factors, they allowed highlighting such issues like educational background, supplementary training, experience, awareness of and preparedness to take up new challenges, and support from local authorities. Overall, this research enabled a thorough investigation of management strategies the most popular with small drinking water utilities and the development of explanatory tools that may usefully guide action from local managers and government bodies.
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Sauter, Paul Kenneth. "A Public Utilities Internship at the Fairfield Water Treatment Plant." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1515672307065945.
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Herbert, Elizabeth. "Forest management by West Coast water utilities : influences and consequences /." Diss., Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2004. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Vieux, Micah Steven. "AN INTERNSHIP IN WATER UTILITY STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1368017965.
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Pleiman, Erin. "INTERNSHIP WITH AN EMERGING STORM WATER UTILITY." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1082664649.
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Ezeji, Joachim Ibeziako. "Increasing the resilience of urban water utilities to extreme weather events." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2013. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/12359.
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The sustainability of municipal drinking water services in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria requires that its water utilities enhance their resilience to a range of risks posed by extreme weather events. Excellence in managing such risks is essential, not only to the bottom line and reputation of the utilities, but also to the wellbeing and prosperity of the people they serve and the preservation of nature in order to sustain ecosystem services. In the context of this study, organisational resilience has been defined as the adaptive deployment of the utility s assets and structures within its continua of inter-dependences to improve and sustain performance even in the face of repeated perturbations. On the other hand, vulnerability is defined as the utility s inability to withstand adverse stress based on limited or constrained capacity to adapt hence creating pathways through which risk impacts the utility. This definition of vulnerability is in tandem with those that argue that the key parameters of vulnerability are the stress to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity. In view of this, and also based on the findings of the study, the study notes that utility management could be a complex and challenging task, especially, in a multi-risk delta environment where extreme events are intense and frequent. Utility managers can become veterans of risks by dissipating, more than ever before technical competence, watershed/ecosystem awareness, social engagement skills and conceptual ability. The latter includes an understanding of how the complexities of the upstream and downstream environment impacts on the utility s internal environment and operations. The diffusive nature of risk makes every risk a potential high impact risk and the understanding of this, is the key to a resilient organization. Risk analysis and management in water utilities should aim to limit the diffusion of risks across streams in order to retard vulnerability. Utility resilience options will need to vary depending on climate related risks to each system, utility management goals, legislation, local and national water management strategies and finance. Utilities in the Niger delta needs to fully understand that they operate close to the edge by virtue of being below sea level and should cultivate a keen awareness of the consequences of flooding and saltwater intrusion, and the importance to manage them amongst others. The study has shown that there is need now, more than ever before for increased revenue generation, elimination of wastes/inefficiencies, financial investment and strategic management of water services operations in the study area if residents and the unborn generation are to be guaranteed of safe and adequate drinking water.
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Barnes, Everton Dean. "Value-based management : public water utilities, a financial consideration / Everton Dean Barnes." Thesis, North-West University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/4332.
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Mova, Al'Afghani Mohamad. "The role of legal frameworks in enabling transparency in water utilities' regulation." Thesis, University of Dundee, 2012. https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/e7d76ec4-3479-4d12-8fce-9a9f01ca442b.
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This thesis evaluates transparency in the context of water utilities’ regulation by comparing legal frameworks in three jurisdictions: Victoria (Australia), England (United Kingdom) and Jakarta (Indonesia). Each of these jurisdictions is selected because of their particular ownership and regulatory model. The thesis analyses whether specific ownership or regulatory models will have implications for transparency. The terms “transparency” and “water utilities’ regulation” are first defined and form the thesis’ analytical framework. This is then applied against the three jurisdictions compared. By evaluating each of the three jurisdictions, the thesis expects to provide explanation on how transparency is enabled or inhibited by the legal frameworks. The thesis recommends a solution by comparing the three jurisdictions and generating “lessons learned”.
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Ries, Matthew Paul. "Sustainability at U.S. Urban Water Utilities: A Framework to Assess Key Attributes." Scholar Commons, 2016. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6367.
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Urban water utilities in the United States face challenges due to a combination of external drivers. These include urbanization and population growth, which are stressing a system of aging infrastructure. Compliance with increasing regulations is also a challenge in a fiscally-constrained economic environment. A changing climate threatens infrastructure and past assumptions for water supply and quality. Urban utilities provide clean water and sanitation services to over 80% of the country’s population and its industrial centers. Therefore, the sustainability of these water utilities are crucial to the country’s and the public’s well-being.
New operating models are emerging for a “utility of the future.” Future utilities will recover resources, reduce their overall environmental impact, partner in the local economy, and deliver watershed-wide benefits to improve quality of life. These are all elements of a sustainable utility, but the sector has not agreed upon an applicable definition of sustainability, which intuitively incorporates an inter-generational approach to utility operations. For the purposes of this research, a sustainable utility is defined as one that will provide its crucial services for current and future generations, protect public and environmental health, and enable economic growth, all while minimizing resource consumption. Previous research provided little guidance on the most important sustainable practices for U.S. urban water utilities or the key attributes of those utilities that enable the shift toward sustainability. Additionally, the practice of sustainability measurement, and the closely-related practice of performance measurement, has not been widely adopted in the U.S. water sector.
This research program addressed the challenge of providing guidance on, and measurement of, sustainability by developing a framework to quickly and quantitatively assess a utility’s sustainability and key organizational attributes. A mixed methods approach to this research used qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The approach utilized accepted anthropological methods to assess engineering and business concepts at water utilities. Data originated from semi-structured interviews of an external advisory committee of 12 widely-recognized, progressive, U.S. water utility leaders along with online surveys of water utility professionals.
The analyzed data revealed the most important sustainable practices for sustainable utilities and organizational attributes that enable the shift toward sustainable operations. Practices are actionable, quantitative, and in some cases, unique to the water sector. Attributes are generally qualitative; largely controlled by internal decisions and actions; and influence a utility’s ability to operate sustainably. Datasets for sustainable practices and organizational attributes were generated using the techniques of discourse analysis on the semi-structured interview transcripts and freelisting on the online survey results. Top results from each dataset were cross-compared to generate the final, consolidated list of top practices and attributes.
A sustainability index was developed from the top eight sustainable practices, measured via a total of 14 indicators. Indices were tailored to water, wastewater, and combined utilities. The top sustainable practices were: Education and Communication; Financial Management; Green Infrastructure; Habitat/Watershed Protection; Long-term Resource Plan; Resource Recovery; and Water Conservation. These eight practices provided sufficient coverage of the economic, social, environmental, and infrastructure components of the triple bottom line-plus concept used to frame sustainability for this research.
This research also established the top six organizational attributes that enable the shift toward sustainability. These attributes were: Board Support / Political Will; Flexible Staff; Innovative Culture; Leadership; Organizational Commitment; and Staff Training / Development. These six attributes were assessed via a total of seven indicators, with guidance and scaling similar to the practices for ease of use by the end user.
Current sustainability and performance measurement frameworks were analyzed for indicators and measurement approaches that matched the top practices and attributes. Some of the practices and only one of the six attributes matched an existing framework. When there was a match, the existing assessment was used to help with ease of use. In other cases, new indicators, guidance, and scaling (for assessment) were developed. Practices and attributes without a match suggests these aspects of sustainable utilities are relatively new to the sector, or at least, measurement of these practices and attributes is not widespread.
The practices and attributes were combined into the final framework, a survey tool, which was pilot tested with three water utilities. The pilot testing demonstrated that the survey was comprehensive, yet at the same time, concise enough that it could be completed in under two hours by a limited number of utility staff. The application of this framework to a representative sample of U.S. urban water utilities can generate data to establish which attributes correlate to sustainable utilities. This will help utilities focus their limited resources on attributes which are shown to enable the shift toward sustainability.
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Pescetto, Gioia Maria Rita. "Regulation, returns and systematic risk : the case of the UK privatised utilities." Thesis, Durham University, 2000. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4610/.
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Following the privatisation programme of public utilities implemented by the UK government in the 1980s and early 1990s, an interesting debate on the impact of regulation on the cost of equity capital has emerged. While the effects of regulatory announcements have been studied extensively in the USA, there is very little systematic evidence in the UK. This thesis partly redresses this imbalance by analysing the impact of regulatory announcements on the ex-post returns of equity capital and systematic risk of three utility industries in the UK, namely the electricity, telecommunications and water industries. The main objective of this thesis is to test the impact of regulatory announcements that relate to competition, pricing and the quality of services on the return and risk of equity capital. By using an event-study type methodology, the thesis attempts to isolate the effects of regulation from technical and market uncertainties. The methodology normally used in this type of studies is extended to adjust for the well-documented problem in financial time series of volatility clustering and to allow for changes in the systematic risk through time. Overall, the results in the empirical chapters reveal some important issues. While it is clear from the debate in the literature that the cost of capital influences the choice of regulatory parameters, this thesis provides evidence to support the view that regulation in turn alters the cost of equity capital by affecting the ex-post returns and systematic risk of both individual regulated companies and industries. Although the direction and size of these effects of regulation are not always easy to predict, there is evidence to suggest that they may depend crucially on the structure and competitive posture of the industry, as well as technological and market conditions and the parameters of the regulatory system.
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Battaglia, Neal F. "Utility of satellite LIDAR waveform data in shallow water." Thesis, Monterey, California : Naval Postgraduate School, 2010. http://edocs.nps.edu/npspubs/scholarly/theses/2010/Jun/10Jun%5FBattaglia.pdf.
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Thesis (M.S. in Applied Physics)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2010.Thesis Advisor(s): Olsen, Richard C. ; Second Reader: Trask, David M. "June 2010." Description based on title screen as viewed on July 14, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: LIDAR Waveforms, Underwater LIDAR signature, Spaceborne LIDAR. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-66). Also available in print.
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MacGillivray, Brian H. "Benchmarking risk management practice within the water utility sector." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2006. http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/2797.
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Explicit approaches to risk analysis within the water utility sector, traditionally applied to occupational health and safety and public health protection, are now seeing broader application in contexts including corporate level decision making, asset management, watershed protection and network reliability. Our research suggested that neither the development of novel risk analysis techniques nor the refinement of existing ones was of paramount importance in improving the capabilities of water utilities to manage risk. It was thought that a more fruitful approach would be to focus on the implementation of risk management rather than the techniques employed per se. Thus, we developed a prescriptive capability maturity model for benchmarking the maturity of implementation of water utility risk management practice, and applied it to the sector via case study and benchmarking survey. We observed risk management practices ranging from the application of hazard and operability studies, to the use of scenario planning in guiding organisational restructuring programmes. We observed methods for their institutionalisation, including the use of initiation criteria for applying risk analysis techniques; the adoption of formalised procedures to guide their application; and auditing and peer reviews to ensure procedural compliance and provide quality assurance. We then built upon this research to develop a descriptive1 capability maturity model of utility risk analysis and risk based decision making practice, and described its case study application. The contribution to knowledge of this stage of the research was three-fold, we: synthesized empirical observations with behavioral and normative theories to codify the processes of risk analysis and risk based decision making; placed these processes within a maturity framework which distinguishes their relative maturity of implementation from ad hoc to adaptive; and provided a comparative analysis of risk analysis and risk based decision making practices, and their maturity of implementation, across a range of utility functions. The research provides utility managers, technical staff, project managers and chief finance officers with a practical and systematic understanding of how to implement and improve risk management, and offers preliminary guidance to regulators concerning how improved water utility governance can be made real.
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Boudreau, Kristan Marie. "Water utility regulation in British Columbia, a way forward." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp05/mq24094.pdf.
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Voight, Dana Evans. "Engineering considerations for privatizing water and wastewater utility systems." Tallahassee, Florida : Florida State University, 2009. http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11042009-182807/.
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Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2009.Advisor: Amy Chan Hilton, Florida State University, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed on Mar. 8, 2010). Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 147 pages. Includes bibliographical references.
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Norden, Ryan Henri. "Persepectives on market processes followed in setting South African water services tariffs." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1018929.
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South Africa’s private sector and the practice of using market processes are often dismissed by the government as service providing options, because they increase costs and fail the poor population. There is some substance to the government’s position, given that there is a natural monopoly advantage in water service provision. Under these circumstances it could be expected that a single firm would emerge as dominant in the provision of these services to urban customers. Were this firm a private one, and unregulated, it could be expected to practice exploitative pricing, make excess profits, and undersupply waste water management service. A private firm would also not provide services to the poor unless their service was subsidised. However most of these deficiencies can be regulated (as shown in Chapter Four), and also occur under public sector provision (as shown in Chapter Five) Are the private sector failures sufficient reason to abandon the market and private sector as mechanisms to deliver water service in South Africa? This dissertation finds little use is made of market processes and the private sector in water service provision (Chapter One), despite there being legal provision for such involvement (Chapter Two). It also finds that public water service providers are not subject to competition policy and consumer protection provisions, whereas private sector providers would be (Chapter Three). The administration of questionnaires to municipalities and the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) show that the various water service providers often operate under unique circumstances, making it difficult to extrapolate management insights from one municipality to another (Chapter Six). A case study on Nelson Mandela Bay Municipal tariff setting reveals a mismatch between economic principle and policy practice, and suggests that economic principle plays a lesser role in the design of tariff structures than other factors (Chapter Seven). Given the problems that are occurring in public sector water service provision, the dissertation concludes the case for dismissing private sector or public utility models for water service delivery may be weaker than is believed by the South African government.
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Shinde, Victor R. "Designing the Tradeoff between Consumer Expectations of Water Quality and Reduction in Energy Use for Water Utilities in Japan." 京都大学 (Kyoto University), 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/160997.
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Coello, Midence Balthasar Zairis Aida. "Insufficient water supply in an urban area - case study : Tegucigalpa, Honduras." Licentiate thesis, KTH, Vattenförvaltning, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-50503.
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Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, has experienced an unsatisfied water demand during the last three decades. The state owned water utility in charge of the water supply of the country, SANAA, has faced this deficit by providing an intermittent water supply. The intermittent water supply has increased the gap between the rich and the poor, who cannot afford water storage facilities. Theories explain water scarcity either by low precipitation or by lack of investment in water structures. This thesis investigates the applicability of both explanations by quantifying the annual precipitation in the sub catchments with water supply potential for Tegucigalpa, and identifying the problems which caused the lack of investment into the water infrastructure. The analysis concluded that even if the annual precipitation is abundant, it is not evenly distributed in time and in space. Furthermore, it is argued that the financial limitations which hindered the lack of investment in water structures originated in the low tariffs imposed, and to the practices of the patronage system.QC 20111207
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Bradshaw, R. A. "Application of high reliability theory in the water utility sector." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2008. http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/4075.
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In the literature, a need was identified to consider the provision of drinking water to be a ‘high reliability’ societal service. This thesis reports on an investigation into the technical and organisational reliability of a defined section in the water utility sector and a Regional Water Utility. Here, the organisational reliability in operations and incident management, and, secondly, the management of technical reliability of water supply systems arising from risk-based asset management were the emphasis of this project. In order to substantiate this investigation, three main research components were designed and conducted: firstly, a characterisation of the nature of incidents and their impact on customers; secondly, an investigation into organisational capabilities to manage incidents and its role in maintaining a resilient water supply system that minimises the impact of incidents on customers, and thirdly, an investigation into riskbased asset management strategies that provide and maintain the technical reliability of the water supply system. In the latter perspective, the opportunity to learn from previous incidents to enhance asset risk assessments was investigated. In this study, it was found that many HRO principles are readily observable in the water utilities that participated in this research. Following the characterisation of incidents, it is demonstrated that the observation of HRO principles during incident management has a positive effect on the overall reduction of incident impacts on customers. Beyond the immediate effect of HRO principles in incident management, it could be demonstrated that ‘learning from failure’ provides a mechanism to understand and manage future risks. The concept of incident meta-analysis is introduced that compares series of past incidents with documented perceived, future risks. The statistical analysis of incident time series facilitated the monitoring of incident trends, the validation of the risk model used in the Regional Water Utility and the verification of risk data, in particular for the risk components ‘probability, cause, effect and impact’.
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Neuman, Sabrina M. "Non-intrusive water utility monitoring and free-space load monitoring." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62750.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 151).
This work presents a non-intrusive, single-point sensing scheme to monitor the water usage for various loads on a water utility pipe network through the vibration of a pipe near the water intake source. Experiments with the water utility sensor provided data sufficient to identify individual loads on the water distribution network both alone and during operation of multiple loads. This sensor setup is useful for smart-metering applications to promote water conservation by keeping track of the operational schedule of individual loads on the local water network. This work also presents the development of a free-space sensor to provide information about the operation and location of electrical loads: an electroquasistatic (EQS) sensor to detect voltage-mode events. The free-space sensor was able to detect events in a room, such as the activation of a line upon turning on a power strip or switching a light switch. This sensor could supplement a power monitoring system by helping to localize the activation of loads.
by Sabrina M. Neuman.
M.Eng.
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Mugabi, Josses. "Determinants of customer decisions to pay utility water bills promptly." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2007. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/33629.
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Over a decade ago the 'Dublin Principles' shifted global thinking towards treating water as an economic good. Accompanying this conceptual shift has been a wider move towards focusing on water consumer's needs and preferences and their willingness to pay (WTP). WTP studies are now widely considered as forming part of an improved planning methodology for water supply, because they provide a basis for distinguishing financially viable water supply projects from those that are destined for failure. However, experience in several low-income countries suggests that cost recovery is still a major problem even for those projects with seemingly good initial financial models. For water utilities, one of the key determinants of overall cost recovery efficiency is the ability to recover payment, within a reasonable timeframe, for all the water bills sent to customers. This study used empirical data, obtained through a cross-sectional survey in eight small urban centres in Uganda, to establish the determinants of customer decisions to pay utility water bills promptly.
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Namaliya, Nicholas Gracious. "Strategies for Maximizing Revenue Collection in Public Water Utility Companies." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3623.
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Africa has a high rate of revenue under-collection in public water utility companies. This rate currently averages 20-50%, and the rate is 18% for Malawi alone. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore credible business strategies senior managers of water utilities use to address inefficiencies in collecting water fee revenues. The conceptual framework for this study was revenue management, which includes strategic constructs for increasing amounts of revenue collection. The target population for this study was 5 senior managers of a public water utility in Malawi, which is located in the southeastern part of Africa. Data collection included semistructured, face-to-face interviews and a review of company documents. The data analysis process involved the use of thematic analysis, including methodological triangulation, to identify 4 themes: innovative strategies, effective metering and billing, customer relationship management, and disconnection of water supply from customers with overdue bills. These themes highlighted credible business strategies that, for these 5 senior managers, were effective in revenue collection. Addressing inefficiencies in collecting water fee revenues will facilitate positive social change by increasing profits, growing the water business, reducing the crime rate by employing more people, providing potable water to reduce waterborne diseases, and contributing to the sustainable social and economic development of the people of Malawi.
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Cui, Ri Xing. "Water privatization in the European Union :models and outstanding questions." Thesis, University of Macau, 2016. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b3537193.
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Chakava, Yolanda. "'Transition Phase' water supply interventions in low-income urban settlements, Kenya." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2013. http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/8475.
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A multitude of transitional water supply and distribution interventions are continually piloted in Kenya’s fast-growing urban settlements to meet national and global MDG targets, yet visible problems persist regardless of the investments made. This research evaluates the performance of four interventions led by public utilities and non- governmental organisations in the low-income settlements of Nairobi, Kisumu and Nakuru counties. To understand the service improvement received by the residents, this study used qualitative data from interviews and focus group discussions and quantitative data from 1,168 household surveys. Service level analysis results showed making water more affordable using pre-paid technology reduced the effective price by 75% and increased consumption per household by 20 litres per day, resulting in the highest service progress. Improving water accessibility for the very poor via hosepipe door-step delivery reduced the burden on women carrying water by 43% although efforts failed to reduce the pricing structure, limiting the progress. Subsidised ‘first-time’ metered plot connections to increase the utility customer base experienced shortages in water supply and reluctance from landlords, restricting development. Despite showing no positive change, 81% of residents continued to rely on expensive self-supplied boreholes which were all contaminated. Although the utilities have made positive strides in service improvement, in the context of universal service this study has shown that the very poor remain the most difficult to access, forming the target of discrete interventions that experience difficulties in influencing a reliable supply, sustained price reduction and/or good water quality – essentially what is needed most. In investigating the longer term supply and demand shortfall, this study concludes that the equitable supply and innovative distribution of point source groundwater, with a bias for the poorest, could be the most resilient transitional solution for the utility to promote in the foreseeable future, out of necessity rather than desire.
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Moreira, Renata Maria Pinto. "Distribuição de água na região metropolitana de São Paulo: tecnologias da universalização e produção do espaço." Universidade de São Paulo, 2008. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/16/16139/tde-11032010-113104/.
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Esta dissertação trata das tecnologias mais recentes na distribuição de água na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo, analisando-as como parte de novas diferenças qualitativas no espaço urbano e metropolitano. Ao estudar historicamente o contexto econômico, político-institucional e técnico do setor, dos planos de abastecimento e da Companhia de Saneamento Básico de São Paulo - Sabesp, busca compreender as relações estabelecidas entre as metas de universalização de saneamento e as novas tecnologias e estratégias operacionais, a internacionalização econômica e financeira da Sabesp, e a delimitação de uma esfera pública dos serviços urbanos na metrópole de São Paulo. Em última instância, busca compreender impedimentos criados à potência política do espaço.This dissertation deals with the most recent technologies for water production and distribution at the Metropolitan Area of São Paulo as part of new qualitative differences in urban and metropolitan space. It aims to understand - by the study of the economical, political-institutional and technical backgrounds of the São Paulo Water Utility (Sabesp) - the links between new technologies and operational strategies, the financial and economical internationalization of the company, universalization goals in water utilities and the delimitation of a public sphere in utilities in São Paulo metropolis. In a word, it aims to understand barriers to virtual capacities of space as political power.
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Sills, Peter. "Christian ethics and the privatization of utility industries." Thesis, University of Kent, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.327486.
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Moccia, Suzanne. "Beyond the public-private binary: cooperatives as alternative water governance models." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/284.
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This thesis examines the concept of water cooperatives as an alternative model to create access, supply and manage water services in poor urban and peri urban areas. Two case studies from the Municipality of Moreno, Buenos Aires are presented in this thesis in order to account for the feasibility of the model. The primary data for this research is derived from participant observation, key informant interviews, household questionnaire-based interviews and archival research.
The significance of researching water cooperatives is that they have traditionally been dismissed in regard to their potential of being a practical alternative to large water concessions and public run water services in the Global South. Research on alternatives such as water cooperatives is key, particularly in the face of growing de-privatization in the water sector in the province of Buenos Aires. The Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area is an important case study for research on water governance because it was intended to be the World Banks model for which other countries would strive to emulate when reforming and improving water services by means of private concessions.
The first part of the thesis examines the political and social history of water cooperatives in Argentina and the effects of privatization on the cooperative model. The second part outlines the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of the governance model and positions these theories against the realities of an existing water cooperative and a poor peri-urban community that has a strong affinity for implementing the model in their community. The two case studies presented in this thesis help to elucidate why the water governance model is able to serve poor peri-urban communities that otherwise remain unserviced by the traditional public or private water governance models. This is significant if we are earnest about providing water and sanitation services to all.
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Kwami, Corina Shika. "Adaptive governance of utilities : case of the water sector in an emerging market context." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2018. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10061891/.
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Adequate, equitable provision of essential resources requires governance that can adapt to the needs of a complex resource regime. Insufficient coordination and cooperation are barriers to governance of a resource system that is characterised by human and social interaction. This thesis explores how the application of governance frameworks for complex resource regimes, adaptive governance and social contracts that enable a diversity of perspectives on governance to inform understanding of cooperation in the provision of essential resources. Utilising an in-depth case study of water and sanitation provision in Medellin, Colombia, the thesis identifies insights from adaptive governance for the provision of essential resources through data-driven and theory-driven analytical approaches to: 1) test whether the system of water governance in Medellin is adaptive 2) describe the regime characteristics in comparison with existing theory on adaptive governance and assess alternative governing arrangements and 3) assess the social contracts within these governance arrangements. The results of semi-structured interviews with 30+ representatives from 6 stakeholder groups (utility provider, metropolitan authority, municipal authority, universities, community-based organisations and water user associations) indicate that the system of water governance in Medellin has: 1) adaptive governance in the policy domain and mechanisms for multi-stakeholder participation, 2) Strong features of polycentric governance associated with 'bridging actors', 3) Strong forms of monocentric governance among environmental and municipal authorities and 4) top-down, mixed and bottom-up social contract arrangements. These findings suggest a form of governance that is consistent with "malleable" governance the capacity of actors within a system to demonstrate different types of arrangements that evolve in relation to needs within the system. Contributions include a multi-disciplinary approach for navigating complex resource regimes and findings that provide a case study narrative of governance that moves towards malleability.
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Dale, Cari K. "Achieving effective asset management for water and wastewater utilities: A comparison of policy options for a special district and a medium city." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2005. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2812.
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This project developed a model for effective asset management drawn from successful programs in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Asset management practices were examined at the City of Ontario Utilities Department; a medium sized utility, and also at the Rainbow Municipal Water District, a small sized utility. Gaps between the ideal model and the existing practices were investigated.
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Pang, Ming-ho Darwin. "An evaluation of waterborne ferry services in Hong Kong : past & future /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2001. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk:8888/cgi-bin/hkuto%5Ftoc%5Fpdf?B23472649.
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Lee, Priscilla P. (Priscilla Pui Si) 1978. "Comparison of public and private water utility financial and management strategies." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17513.
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Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2001."June 2001."
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-64).
Recently, there has been a growing trend towards public-private partnerships and privatization in the water supply industry. However, the benefits of public-private partnerships and privatization are not clear. In order to better understand the consequences of the shift towards the private sector, one must recognize the different approaches used by each sector. This study compares the financial and management strategies of the public and private water utilities. The various strategies are presented through six case studies of public and private water utilities in the United States. Each study focuses on the capital investment program, financing sources, and management practices of each utility. A financial analysis of each utility is performed to support the case study. Eight financial ratios are used to evaluate the utilities' financial leverage, efficiency and liquidity. Finally, some general conclusions about the different approaches used by each sector are discussed.
by Priscilla P. Lee.
M.Eng.
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Pudney, Steven Grant. "Asset renewal decision modelling with application to the water utility industry." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2010. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/40933/1/Steven_Pudney_Thesis.pdf.
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Reliable infrastructure assets impact significantly on quality of life and provide a stable foundation for economic growth and competitiveness. Decisions about the way assets are managed are of utmost importance in achieving this. Timely renewal of infrastructure assets supports reliability and maximum utilisation of infrastructure and enables business and community to grow and prosper. This research initially examined a framework for asset management decisions and then focused on asset renewal optimisation and renewal engineering optimisation in depth. This study had four primary objectives. The first was to develop a new Asset Management Decision Framework (AMDF) for identifying and classifying asset management decisions. The AMDF was developed by applying multi-criteria decision theory, classical management theory and life cycle management. The AMDF is an original and innovative contribution to asset management in that: · it is the first framework to provide guidance for developing asset management decision criteria based on fundamental business objectives; · it is the first framework to provide a decision context identification and analysis process for asset management decisions; and · it is the only comprehensive listing of asset management decision types developed from first principles. The second objective of this research was to develop a novel multi-attribute Asset Renewal Decision Model (ARDM) that takes account of financial, customer service, health and safety, environmental and socio-economic objectives. The unique feature of this ARDM is that it is the only model to optimise timing of asset renewal with respect to fundamental business objectives. The third objective of this research was to develop a novel Renewal Engineering Decision Model (REDM) that uses multiple criteria to determine the optimal timing for renewal engineering. The unique features of this model are that: · it is a novel extension to existing real options valuation models in that it uses overall utility rather than present value of cash flows to model engineering value; and · it is the only REDM that optimises timing of renewal engineering with respect to fundamental business objectives; The final objective was to develop and validate an Asset Renewal Engineering Philosophy (AREP) consisting of three principles of asset renewal engineering. The principles were validated using a novel application of real options theory. The AREP is the only renewal engineering philosophy in existence. The original contributions of this research are expected to enrich the body of knowledge in asset management through effectively addressing the need for an asset management decision framework, asset renewal and renewal engineering optimisation based on fundamental business objectives and a novel renewal engineering philosophy.
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Ntelela, Rashid Friday. "Assessment of the impact of service charters on service delivery in Malawi: a case of Southern Region Water Board." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/549.
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Malawi is divided into three regions, namely: Southern, Central and Northern regions. Each Region has an independent Water Board owned by Government to supply it with portable water. The Constitution of the Republic of Malawi 1994, Chapter 3, Section 13 recognizes public trust and good governance as some of the fundamental principles of National Policy and thereby promised to introduce measures which will guarantee accountability, transparency, personal integrity and financial probity and which by virtue of their effectiveness will strengthen confidence in public institutions. In order to improve service delivery and fulfill the stated constitutional imperatives, the Malawi Government issued the following statement in 2008, one of our cardinal agenda is reform aimed at changing the way things are done in the public service so that it becomes more efficient and responsive to the needs of all Malawians. As a Government we realize that no matter how brilliant plans and development agenda can be, they will be frustrated unless major reforms are initiated and implemented to facilitate required changes to support the development process. Major changes are necessary in values, beliefs, norms, attitudes and mindsets to help create an enabling environment for the effective management of reforms across the public service. We need to move away from the business as usual type of attitude and fully account for time that we are paid for from public funds if we are to join the prosperous nations (National Framework for Public Sector Management Reform, June, 2008).
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Sayles, Rebecca. "Customer contributions to water sector planning and decision-making in England and Wales." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2015. http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/12261.
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Mounting recognition of the socio-political context of the management of water resources has rendered the application of technocratic approaches in isolation insufficient in addressing future management challenges with participatory approaches increasingly promoted in response. Against this background, new regulatory mechanisms in the water sector in England and Wales promise an increased role for the views of customers in water utility planning and decision- making. Yet, existing scholarship on the institutionalisation of participative approaches in water utility planning and decision-making in England and Wales is sparse. This thesis contributes to an improved understanding of factors that hold potential to impact institutionalisation of participative approaches in this context by focusing on three specific aspects of effectiveness; motivational clarity, the influence of participative mechanism design, and the use and influence of water utility customer contributions in water sector planning and decision-making. This has been achieved through the deployment of participatory research in collaboration with the sponsoring organisation (a water utility operating in England and Wales) utilising group discussion and semi-structured interviews with domestic water customers and water utility practitioner respectively. Findings demonstrate that preference elicitation vehicles embedded within participatory mechanisms hold the potential to influence participants expressed preferences thus representing a key design consideration where multi- mechanism approaches are deployed in planning and decision-making contexts. Furthermore, useful design considerations for multi-attribute presentation in participatory mechanisms are presented. Findings also identify a dominance of instrumental and legalistic practitioner motivations for the use of participative approaches in water utility decision-making. Foremost, it identified the significance of the regulator in driving water utility practices for the management and influence of customer contributions in planning and decision- making, and more fundamentally illustrates the significant barrier posed by a legacy of technocratic practices for the institutionalisation of participatory approaches in water utilities.
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Yang, Yin. "The economic geography of urban water infrastructure investment and governance : a comparison of Beijing and London." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:838a382b-a050-4467-9ec1-42923e0f5c56.
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Urban infrastructure is the key physical asset for successful functioning of modern cities. Yet the building and maintaining infrastructure networks require robust institutions, either expressed explicitly in rules and regulations or implicitly in social norms and mutual expectations, which are crucial for governing the complex relationships among all stakeholders including governments, regulators, investors, utilities and consumers that underpin the production of infrastructure services. Although there are more and more studies focusing on infrastructure, the underlying institutions that sustain the 'sink' of long-term accumulation of finance, technology, organisational and geopolitical power for shaping urban landscape have often been neglected. In particular, few studies have investigated the uneven geographical phenomenon of urban infrastructure investment and governance. As such, this thesis compares and explores how and why political, institutional and governance frameworks in Beijing and London influence urban water infrastructure investment and service delivery differently. The findings from the comparative study of the thesis should assist better understanding of 'variegated capitalism', especially state capitalism versus liberal capitalism. Through case study and close dialogue methodology, this thesis compares and investigates the investment models, governance frameworks, pricing systems and infrastructure contracts for urban water infrastructure in Beijing and London from the perspective of economic geography. Based on the theories of institutional and relational economic geography, this thesis organizes the study into four substantive chapters: Chapter Three compares the investment models employed in Beijing and London for water infrastructure investment and the underlying institutions; Chapter Four explores the effects of different governance frameworks on urban water infrastructure investment and service delivery in Beijing and London; Chapter Five investigates the effects of different pricing systems in the two cities for coordinating the intrinsic, market and investment value of urban water infrastructure; Chapter Six analyses different infrastructure contracts for financing large-scale water infrastructure projects in the two cities. The thesis finds that institutions are embedded in time and space for harnessing the flows of capital and producing the configurations of infrastructure provision, thus shaping the heterogeneous landscape of the material, economic, social and geopolitical fabric of contemporary cities. Therefore, in contrast to the statement 'form follows function', this thesis argues that infrastructure functions are inherently geographical in nature. The thesis has made the following contributions: firstly, it has compared the various trajectories of urban water infrastructure investment and governance in different political economic contexts, especially the dialogue between Global North and South, making original contribution in the 'geography of infrastructure'; secondly, the thesis employs cases studies to compare and investigate institutions empirically - issues that have been neglected for much too long in mainstream economic geography, contributing to 'variegated capitalism'; finally, in practical terms this research provides information for governments, regulators, investors, infrastructure providers and other stakeholders on in-depth understanding of urban water infrastructure investment and governance in different institutional and relational contexts.
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Meyer, Sarah Ruth. "Improvements and assessments of water auditing techniques." [College Station, Tex. : Texas A&M University, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1087.
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Haider, Husnain. "Performance management framework for small to medium sized water utilities : conceptualization to development and implementation." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/53582.
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To ensure safe and secure water supply, water utilities are experiencing challenges of climate change, socio-economic viability, and rapid rate of environmental degradation. Core of water utility business deals with managing assets and services which can be divided into functional components, such as water resource management and environmental stewardship, operational practices, personnel productivity, physical infrastructure, customer service, public health security, socio-economic issues, as well as financial viability. To be a sustainable water utility, major impetus is to enhance performance efficiency and effectiveness of the functional components to ensure high level of customer satisfaction. Due to limited human and financial resources, small and medium sized water utilities (SMWU) are facing even further challenges related to performance enhancement. The participation of SMWU in Canada is almost negligible in National Water and Wastewater Initiative (NWWBI) so far. Consequently, such SMWU are managing their functional components without knowing whether they are meeting their primary performance objectives or not. Hence, there is an urgent need of a comprehensive framework for adopting performance management in SMWU. In this research, an integrated performance management framework, consisting of five models has been developed. The overall framework initiates with the identification of performance indicators (PIs) based on a critical review, followed by the model using multicriteria decision analysis for the selection of PIs encompassing all the functional components. These PIs are then evaluated through an inter-utility performance benchmarking model (IU-PBM), which efficiently deals with the exiting data limitations in SMWU. Based on the IU-PBM results, an intra-utility performance management model (In-UPM) has been developed to hone in the performance of sub-components and different water supply systems within the utility for decision making under uncertainty. Finally, a risk-based model has been developed to improve customer satisfaction in SMWU. This research will help utility managers across Canada and potentially other parts of the World to enhance performance management for SMWU. The utility managers can effectively implement this framework, with available resources, to achieve socio-economic benefits, as they can: i) identify the underperforming functional components, and can take corrective actions rationally; ii) manage customer satisfaction with efficient inventory management and data analyses.Applied Science, Faculty of
Engineering, School of (Okanagan)
Graduate
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Wood, Andrew. "Data assessment and utilization for improving asset management of small and medium size water utilities." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/31184.
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Data regarding water main breaks are essential for undertaking informed and effective infrastructure asset management. This thesis reports on the findings of a survey regarding water main break data collection practices across North America and develops an approach for constructing databases and integrating the data with break prediction models to improve the asset management practices of a utility. The survey determines the amount and type of data collected by water utilities, the level of comfort with the amount of data collected and the availability of alternate sources of data. The responses provide insight into the strategies and data collection practices of small to mid-size utilities and show that the amount of data collected by utilities can be classified by the degree of data richness and defined as either an expanded, intermediate, limited or minimal data set. Utilities can implement recommended practices to increase the amount of data they collect, increase effectiveness of data collection and processing and consider additional sources of data for wager main breaks to improve their data sets. The thesis also introduces an approach for constructing a water main break and general network database that relates data from multiple sources to augment the amount of data available for asset management analysis while maintaining existing data warehousing practices. When used, managers may gain insight into current and future performance of the distribution network and develop future asset management strategies. The approach is flexible, uses commonly available software tools and anticipates the evolution of data collection, verification and storage capabilities within the utility. Finally, a framework is presented that guides small to medium water utilities in identifying key data to be used in asset management and pipe break prediction modeling and in selecting appropriate water main break prediction models. The framework may be used to identify the magnitude of a utility's pipe burst problems today and in the future, enhance the development of pipe replacement priorities based on forecasted breaks and identify key data to collect in future data acquisition programs. Water utilities with varying amounts of data can easily implement it with their existing data management and analysis tools.Applied Science, Faculty of
Civil Engineering, Department of
Graduate
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Linares, Luis Ana Margarida. "Strategic risk management in water utilities : development of a holistic approach linking risks and futures." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2014. http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/9300.
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Risk management plays a key role in water utilities. Although tools are well established at operational and tactical levels of management, existing methods at strategic level lack a holistic treatment and a long-term perspective. In fact, risks are analysed per se, despite being interconnected; and long-term scenarios are commonly used for strategic planning, rather than for risk management, most of the time being related to one single issue (for example: climate change). In order to overcome the limitations identified in the existing methodologies, a novel approach for water utilities to manage risk at strategic level was developed and tested in EPAL - the largest and oldest water utility in Portugal. It consists of (i) setting a baseline risks comparison founded on a systemic model developed ‗bottom-up‘ through the business; (ii) the construction of future scenarios and an observation of how baseline risks may change with time. Major contributions of this research are the linkage between operational and strategic risks, capturing the interdependencies between strategic risks; the ability to look at long term risk, allowing the visualizing of the way strategic risks may change under a possible future scenario; and the novel coupling of risks and futures research. For the water sector, this approach constitutes a useful tool for strategic planning, which may be presented to the Board of Directors in a simple and intuitive way, despite the solid foundations of the underlying analysis. It also builds on in-house expertise, promoting the dissemination and pervasiveness of risk management within the companies and, on the other hand, allowing unveiling of existing knowledge, making it explicit and more useful for the organization.
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Kea, Kandace. "An Analysis of Trends in U.S. Stormater Utility and Fee Systems." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/53704.
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Many municipalities have established stormwater user fees (SUFs), commonly known as stormwater utilities, to raise revenue for stormwater management programs, however little is known about the trends among the fees currently in existence. This research observes trends in the establishment, type and magnitude of user fees by analyzing location, population density, home value, and establishment for a comprehensive national stormwater user fee database with data for 1,490 user fees. The Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU), a SUF that charges based on impervious area, was the most prevalent fee type in all NOAA Climate regions of the U.S. except the West and West North Central. The Tier system, a SUF that charges differently for properties by defined categories, was the second most prevalent in all regions except the East North Central and West North Central. The ERU was found in larger cities with high population densities whereas flat fees, SUFs that charge a single rate for all properties, were found in smaller towns. Higher home values led to higher monthly fees for 28% of the municipalities analyzed. The Residential Equivalence Factor (REF), a SUF that charges based on runoff produced, was popular in municipalities with higher home values and the flat fee was popular in those with lower home values. The number of SUFs established increased near Phase I MS4 permit and Phase II small MS4 permit deadlines.Master of Science
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Suleiman, Lina. "Privatisation of Jordan’s Capital Water Utility : Assessment and Evaluation of Water supply and Wastewater Services of Amman Governorate." Thesis, KTH, Mark- och vattenteknik, 2002. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-80528.
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Kizito, Frank. "Water supply management in an urban utility a prototype decision support framework /." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm : Skolan för arkitektur och samhällsbyggnad, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-11900.
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Furlong, Kathryn. "Municipal water supply governance in Ontario: neoliberalization, utility restructuring, and infrastructure management." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/230.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the interaction of political-economic restructuring, sustainability, and the governance of municipal services in the province of Ontario, Canada. Two issues are studied: the restructuring of business models, and programs for sustainable infrastructure management (focusing on programs for the reduction of water consumption and production). The primary data are derived from a province-wide expert survey, archival research, a one-day expert workshop, and seven municipal case studies.
Since the early 1990s, political-economic restructuring in Ontario predominantly reflects processes and policy orientations consistent with neoliberalization. Two strands of research posit particular relationships between neoliberalization and sustainability. One (associated with political ecology) asserts that neoliberalization yields negative outcomes for environmental policy. The other (ecological modernization) asserts that neoliberal restructuring leads to environmental improvements. This thesis tests and complicates both sets of claims. Specifically, neoliberalization does not necessarily induce improved programming for sustainability and can, hinder its development. Neoliberalization, however, is not the unique hindrance to progress on sustainability. Rather, a techno-physical approach to service delivery combined with governance arrangements that neither empower nor compel a variety of necessary actors presents a key barrier to sustainability.
In terms of the restructuring of business models, I find that the primary neoliberal strategy is the depoliticization of governance through the pursuit of arms length business models for service delivery. This, however, is not readily accomplished in complete or straightforward ways. Municipal governments and anti-neoliberal alliances have complex relationships to neoliberalization that prove important in restructuring outcomes. Specifically, neoliberalization is also contested within municipal government and for environmental advocates, although their best option, the municipal department model remains unsatisfactory.
Concerning sustainable infrastructure management, the thesis finds that up-take of supply and demand management in Ontario has been limited to date. This results from incentives created by policy processes associated with neoliberalization (specifically new public management) and technically-driven management methods in the water sector. Moreover, where programs for sustainable infrastructure management currently occur, they are rarely motivated by sustainability concerns. Importantly, however, sustainable infrastructure management is underdeveloped for reasons other than neoliberalization; governance arrangements and the continuing supply-side orientation of water utilities are other factors.