The Statistics and Economics Specialist Group provides a forum to discuss the financing of water utilities, the water tariff structures, performance indicators, efficiency and economics of water organisations and themes like total cost recovery. A part of this service consists of water surveys and providing statistics on water industry, such as tables and figures on abstraction, consumption, tariffs and data on sewerage and wastewater treatment.
The report “International Statistics for Water Services” is part of a series of documents presented at the IWA World Water Congresses. This report, more specifically the charges and consumption part, focuses on water consumption of households and small businesses.
The prices indicated do not necessarily reflect the full costs of water services, because some costs may be covered by sources other than the customer. In some cases there can be a political motivation to ensure that water is supplied at a socially acceptable price. There are many other factors affecting relative price levels, but these are not focused on in this survey.
Similar to the previous edition we have collected data from water bills, based on an annual consumption of 100 m3 and 200 m3 per year, to facilitate comparison on city level. All financial data are converted to US$, exchange rate December 31th, 2011. All quantitative information on population and so on is based on the situation in 2010.
