AWWA ACE61661

Based on statistical analyses of a dataset created from the California Urban Water Conservation Council (CUWCC) website, this study confirms some familiar but not widely-applied perceptions that include: water-loss management programs can increase revenue and save resources during a relatively short payback period; metering systems are a very important tool for water management including water-loss control; big systems are likely to lose more water in the distribution systems; and, water rate systems can be an effective policy tool in encouraging water conservation and discouraging water waste and loss. This study tests the following two hypotheses in an empirical model. Hypothesis 1: the more expenditures on water-loss control, the less water lost. Hypothesis 2: the quantity of water loss is likely to be a function of various factors such as system size, population served, water rates, production costs, customer mix, metering rate, water produced, and other operational factors. This study calculates water loss by subtracting the sum of metered sales (revenue water) and other system verifiable uses (authorized uses) from total supply into the system (total water produced). To test the hypotheses, this study analyzes a model, using linear regression. The model is the following: dependent variable = amount of water loss; independent variables = expenditures on leak-control programs, miles of distribution system, service area population, total number of accounts metered, total number of accounts un-metered, revenue from volumetric rates/ total deliveries per customer type (residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, and irrigation). Includes 7 references, tables, figure.