Water Prices in CEE and CIS Countries. Volume I: Main Text
Appendix 3
Technical Profile Summary
Technical Profile Summary
Comments to technical profile summary - System Data
Re.: Land Use
We have included an indicator for the proportion of population living in housing blocks. In most of the CIS, apartments in housing blocks do not have individual meters. Thus, the indicator provides an indication of the expected level of individual household metering.
Re.: Overall Water Supply Coverage
The indicators under this heading provide a general description of the water supply coverage. These indicators are typically available from the water utility.
Re.: Overall Wastewater Coverage
The indicators under this heading provide a general description of the wastewater collection system coverage. These indicators are typically available from the water utility.
Re.: Overall Wastewater Treatment Situation
The indicators under this heading focus on current type of wastewater treatment (mechanical, biological treatment, nutrient removal). These indicators are typically available from the water utility. It is important to distinguish between design capacities and technologies.
Re.: Existing Water System Brief
Under this heading, the existing water supply facilities are summarised.
A technical description requires an assessment of the condition of the infrastructure. This is complicated by the fact that the vast majority of the investments is underground. Some rough estimate of the quality of the "hidden" infrastructure is essential to be able to provide a reasonable forecast of how service levels for water supply / wastewater collection will develop in the future in the "without-project" scenario and also to assess the anticipated rehabilitation level requirements. Typically, the age / material profile of the water and wastewater networks - combined with local experience in maintenance requirements - are used as indicator of the condition of the networks.
The water network typically constitutes say 75% of the water supply assets, and as these facilities are underground, we need a proxy for the condition of the systems (and thereby needs for investments). We have suggested the pipe age distribution, as such an indicator is often roughly known.
Re.: Existing Wastewater System Brief
Under this heading, the existing wastewater facilities are summarised. As for the water network, we have also for the wastewater collection network included indicators covering the age profile of the network.
Re.: Unit Consumption - Water Balance
Under this heading some important indicators are provided.
Together with the UfW (Unaccounted-for-Water) estimate, the gross and domestic per capita unit water consumption will ideally provide information on consumption levels, network condition and potentials for reduction in production/consumption. For the UfW we have included two indicators - % of production, and m3/km pipe/day. The first indicator is most frequently quoted, but can be misleading - not the least in systems with high unit water consumption. The m3/km pipe/day is a much better indicator for assessing the condition of the pipe network.
Generally, the water consumption is only partly metered, or is at maximum metered through group meters. The key metering problem is at the large housing blocks / flats, where the original technical design of the buildings complicates installation of individual household water meters.
Therefore, in many cases the consumption/production data are based on norms, or pump characteristics combined with data on pump operation hours. This reliability problem makes it essentially important that sound judgement and "guesstimates" of the water balance are made early in project preparation process.
Re.: Consumer Groups and Metering
Under this heading, the number of connections and metering coverage is provided. Often there is a confusion about the number of connections / accounts, again due to the large housing blocks, which sometimes are recorded as one connection (through a group meter) and other times recorded as many connections reflecting the number of flats in the block. Therefore, the metering coverage figures should be assessed carefully.
Comments to operational service data
There is not always correlation between the technical reality and people's perception of the reality. Take the water quality as an example. That the water quality fulfils applicable standards is not necessarily a guarantee that people are satisfied with the quality - and visa versa. Consumers typical give highest priority to bacteriological water quality (not measured in E-coli, but rather measured in not getting sick) and the more aesthetical water quality parameters.
In an analyses which also focuses on service levels and on water utility revenues as a result of willingness to pay etc., it is essential to take the customer perspective. This is done through the questionnaires and assessments of customer perception. Here we provide the technical background against which to assess customer perceptions.
Text Box:
Discrepancy between Actual and Perceived Water Quality
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Re.: Operational service indicators - Water
Under this heading, the key operational indicators of reliability of water services is described through a number of indicators:
 | Average number of days of production per month and average number of hours of production per day; |
| Reliability is a highly important but difficult issue to address, because the situation might differ in various parts of the supply area. Furthermore, there are no physical data measuring reliability, the closest approximation being the average production hours per day, which in some areas might be far from the actual supply. The most common way of assessing reliability is through household surveys. The indicator of reliability of supply has to be matched with a percentage of population having that level of reliability. |
Reliability of supply measured as proportion of consumers receiving water for 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours per day:
| Breakdown intensity calculated as the number of reported breakdowns per 100km pipes/yr. |
This indicator will together with the UfW and age profile contribute to the assessments of the present condition of the water network:
| Consumer complaint frequency, calculated as the number of complaints per 100 connections per year; |
| Water pipe rehabilitation intensity, calculated as percentage of water network (km pipes) rehabilitated per year. |
This indicator describes the current rehabilitation level and provides information on potential backlog of rehabilitation. If pipeline lifetime on average is say 50 years; one should on average rehabilitate 2% per year:
| Water quality failure rate, calculated as % of chemical water quality tests / bacteriological water quality tests not fulfilling the standards. |
Re.: Operational Indicators - Wastewater
Under this heading, the key operational indicators of reliability of wastewater services is described through a number of indicators:
| Blockage intensity, calculated as the number of blockages per 100 km sewers/year. |
This indicator will - together with the age profile - contribute to the assessments of the present condition of the water network:
| Sewer rehabilitation intensity, calculated as a percentage of wastewater collection network (km sewers) rehabilitated per year. |
This indicator describes the current rehabilitation level and provides information on potential backlog of rehabilitation. If pipeline lifetime on average is say 50 years; one should on average rehabilitate 2% per year:
| CCTV inspection degree, calculated as the % of sewer network inspected by CCTV. |
This indicator will - together with the blockage intensity and the age profile - contribute to the assessments of the condition of the water network. The indicator further can be used as a proxy for reliability of the condition assessments (the higher percentage of sewers CCTV inspected, the higher reliability in the condition assessments):
| Key Effluent Standards (BOD, SS, NH3, Tot-N and TotP) Effluent Standard Failure Rate, calculated as % of effluent quality tests not fulfilling the standards. This indicator will contribute to the assessment of the wastewater treatment efficiency. |
Efficiency Indicators
A few indicators on staff efficiency have been included for overall assessments of the current staffing levels:
| Staff Efficiency I: Number of persons served per staff member; |
| Staff Efficiency II: Number of m3 water sold per year per staff member; and |
| Staff Efficiency III: Km of water and wastewater pipes per staff member. |
Many of the numbers can be compared to international standards by using benchmarking studies or searching the Web. Two good sources are the EBRD (2000) indicator study for Poland prepared by WRC and the World Bank sponsored website.
http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/water/topics/uom_bench.html