scholarly journals The Roadmap to a Low-Carbon Urban Water Utility: An international guide to the WaCCliM approach

Keyword(s):  
2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Shulte Joung ◽  
Mary Ann Dickinson

This report documents a project undertaken for the California Urban Water Conservation Council to create a method to calculate water utility avoided costs and assign economic value to the environmental benefits of raw water savings as a result of implementing urban water conservation programs. It is assumed that water savings associated with implementation of conservation programs can be quantified and represented as a reduction in the demand for water from a particular set of supply sources. This demand reduction may in turn result in a change to the availability of an environmental benefit provided by that source. Environmental valuation, as it is applied here, is relatively new and there are numerous complications, ambiguities, data gaps and differences of opinion in the application of the methodology. For that reason, this report should be considered a pioneering effort to put together all the required elements in a single coherent framework.


2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (12) ◽  
pp. 2691-2710
Author(s):  
Gerasimos Antzoulatos ◽  
Christos Mourtzios ◽  
Panagiota Stournara ◽  
Ioannis-Omiros Kouloglou ◽  
Nikolaos Papadimitriou ◽  
...  

Abstract The rise of Internet of Things (IoT), coupled with the advances in Artificial Intelligence technologies and cloud-based applications, have caused fundamental changes in the way societies behave. Enhanced connectivity and interactions between physical and cyber worlds create ‘smart’ solutions and applications to serve society's needs. Water is a vital resource and its management is a critical issue. ICT achievements gradually deployed within the water industry provide an alternative, smart and novel way to improve water management efficiently. Contributing to this direction, we propose a unified framework for urban water management, exploiting state-of-the-art IoT solutions for remote telemetry and control of water consumption in combination with machine learning-based processes. The SMART-WATER platform aims to foster water utility companies by enhancing water management and decision-making processes, providing innovative solutions to consumers for smart water utilisation.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Dália Loureiro ◽  
Catarina Silva ◽  
Maria Adriana Cardoso ◽  
Aisha Mamade ◽  
Helena Alegre ◽  
...  

Urban water systems (UWSs) are energy-intensive worldwide, particularly for drinking-water pumping and aeration in wastewater treatment. Usual approaches to improve energy efficiency focus only on equipment and disregard the UWS as a continuum of stages from source-to-tap-to-source (abstraction/transport—treatment—drinking water transport/distribution—wastewater and stormwater collection/transport—treatment—discharge/reuse). We propose a framework for a comprehensive assessment of UWS energy efficiency and a four-level approach to enforce it: overall UWS (level 1), stage (level 2), infrastructure component (level 3) and processes/equipment (level 4). The framework is structured by efficiency and effectiveness criteria (an efficient but ineffective infrastructure is useless), earlier and newly developed performance indicators and reference values. The framework and the approach are the basis for a sound diagnosis and intervention prioritising, and are being tested in a peer-to-peer innovation project involving 13 water utilities (representing 17% of the energy consumption by the Portuguese water sector in 2017). Results of levels 1–3 of analysis herein illustrated for a water utility demonstrate the framework and approach potential to assess UWS effectiveness and energy efficiency, and to select the stages and infrastructures for improvement and deeper diagnosis.


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 209-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.W.A. Franceys

The cost of new water connections for poor urban dwellers in middle and low-income economies, that is the official fees, costs of pipework and additional costs, is reported from a global survey of water utilities and a four country, two city questionnaire of newly connected households. The objective is to investigate whether directly ‘charging to enter the water shop’ is the most effective means of recovering costs for the water utility whilst ensuring maximum access to the urban poor who benefit most from convenient access to clean, affordable water.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Kwasi Agbenyegah

 It is expected that adequate quantity and quality of service delivery is one of the preconditions that contributes to safe water and sanitation delivery. Yet the human resource gap in WATSAN sector is relatively unknown (S. Cavill & D. Saywell, 2009). This paper outlines a piece of research that was conducted to provide a reliable skill gap assessment and  building solution in Ghana to national water utility provider staff members, stakeholders and influencers.The Purpose of the Research is to undertake Training Needs Analysis that will be followed up with Capacity Gap Assessment and Enhancement in urban water management and service delivery in Accra and Sekondi- Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, GhanaThe research found significant relationship between staff, stakeholders and influences service quality delivery and customer satisfaction. Therefore, the study was followed up with staff, stakeholders and influencer’s capacity building initiatives and motivation techniques, communication skills, cost reduction strategies, assets maintenance, billing cycles, monitoring and evaluation as panacea to quality service delivery. Furthermore, the study recommended that the management, influencers and stakeholders should reexamine and re programme the organization’s conceptual framework, vision, mission and operations such as their customer data base system to capture their customer’s profiles and needs so as to deliver customer focused services.Key Words: WATSAN, Utility, Influencers, Service Delivery, Customer, Staff, Stakeholders, Capacity, Ghana


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