The performance of the urban water and wastewater sectors in Australia

Exploring and analysing sources of technical efficiency in water supply services: Some evidence from Southeast Asian public water utilities

“…Capital stock (3) Volume of water delivered (15) Total assets (1) Volume of treated sewage (1.5) Length of delivery Volume of water sold (1) Network/pipes/mains (8) Daily water supply hours (3) Length of sewer network (1) Length of pipes/mains (3) Number of water connections (2) Length of sewer pipes (1) Number of sewerage connections (1) Proportion of water delivered to non-households (1) Number of water pump houses (1) Number of connections (7) Number of wastewater pump houses (1) Primary and secondary wastewater treatments (1) Number of treatment plants (2) Average salary (1) Capital costs (2) Number of customers (5) Capital replacement costs (1) Daily production (1) Price of capital (1) Population density (2) Number of employees (7) Water from surface sources Number of non-capitalised Availability (1) Employees (1) Population served (5) Labour costs (3) Area served (1) Hours of work (1) Capacity of sewerage network (3) Wages (3) Volume of water billed (3) Operating costs (12) Yearly water production (1) Operating and maintenance Chemical analyses performed (3) Costs (2) Qualitative treatment variables (1) Material costs (3) Quality adjustment indices (2) Price of material (1) Complaints index (1) Energy costs (3) Water service index (1) Chemical costs (2) Accounted for water ratio (1) Treatment costs (1) Water loses (1) Other costs (2) Coverage (2) Notes: The figure in brackets indicates the frequency. We only included the academic studies on water utilities from 1998 onwards in which they explicitly classified the variables used into input and output variables.…”

“…Besides, total connections consist of both residential and industrial connections. Some authors [2,12] argue that this variable can be used to analyse the effect of economies of scale on the efficiency levels. To capture this effect, total connections are used in the study.…”

Conclusions and Implications

“…Inefficient DMUs are enveloped by fully efficient DMUs of comparable size. Examples of authors who used DEA to analyse the efficiency of water utilities include Corton and Berg (2009), De Witte and Marques (2012), Abbott et al (2012), Picazo-Tadeo et al (2008, and Tupper and Resende (2004). DEA can be either input-oriented or output-oriented.…”

Efficiency, Conflicting Goals and Trade-Offs: A Nonparametric Analysis of the Water and Wastewater Service Industry in Italy

“…Findings indicate that most of the utilities are low-performing and that there is room for significant improvement with respect to operation and maintenance costs, human resource, and water losses. Abbot et al [12] apply the Malmquist DEA to determine the different levels of productivity and efficiency improvement of the water and wastewater sectors of Australia's major urban centers since the mid of 1990s. They find that the structural reform determined modest but positive productivity gains.…”