Recent advances in calculating economic intervention frequency for active leakage control, and implications for calculation of economic leakage levels

Abstract

During the last decade, IWA Water Losses Task Force members have developed a systematic practical approach to the technical management of non-revenue water and its components, with (since 2002) increasing use of 95% confidence limits in these calculations. The current Water Losses Task Force has recently set itself an objective to develop a quick and practical method for calculating economic intervention (for active leakage control to locate unreported leaks and bursts), and short-run economic leakage level. This paper outlines a quick and practical method for assessing economic intervention frequency (and associated budgetary and volumetric parameters) for an active leakage control policy based on regular survey. Calculations are based on three key parameters: natural rate of rise of unreported leakage, marginal cost of water, and cost of intervention. It is hoped this will encourage Utilities that do not currently undertake active leakage control to adopt an ongoing basic active leakage control policy which can be simply demonstrated as being economic for their own situation.

A review of nonrevenue water assessment software tools

“…Source: EconoLeak software v1.a survey complete the entire network. This is estimated based on the variable cost of water, intervention cost, and also the rate of rise of unreported leakage, as shown in Equations (11) and (12) (Lambert & Fantozzi, 2005).…”

“…Active leakage detection and control uses methods to detect, locate, and pinpoint leaks (Li, Huang, Xin, & Tao, ; Puust et al, ; Wu & Liu, ). Designing the frequency of leakage detection surveys based on economics has been suggested by Lambert and Fantozzi (); it is based on estimating the rate of rise of leakage (Lambert & Lalonde, ). However, leakage cannot be totally eliminated.…”

An overview of smart water networks

“…There are four pillars of real‐loss water management: active leak control, pressure management, asset management, and speed and quality of repairs (Lambert & Fantozzi, 2005). The most widely deployed leak‐control strategies involve regular network sweeps by field detection teams using such methods as sounding, acoustic logging and correlation, and step‐testing.…”

New directions in water economics, finance and statistics

“…Currently, the IWA Task Force on water losses is working on providing a simple method for assessing economic intervention frequency for an active leakage control policy based on a regular survey. Calculations are based on three key parameters: average rate in the rise of unreported leakage, marginal cost of water and cost of intervention (Lambert and Fantozzi, 2005).…”