These data provide a starting point for debate on how services can be or should be financed, the importance of water tariff structures, and topics like consumption patterns, taxes,  leakages, etc. In general, this information can help organizations set up strategies from a holistic management perspective.

Water price structure and water pricing are not stand-alone mechanisms to ensure sustainable water use. In fact, sustainability can only be obtained by change of the customer behaviour directly linked to the awareness of scarcity of the water resources all over the world.

The one and best solution to an ideal water tariff structure does not exist. But we can state that water companies, par definition, are so called “fixed cost” companies. As a consequence, the fixed cost should play a major role in the discussion about water billing. Of course, we have also to take into account that the water bill should reflect the variable costs of a water company, “total cost recovery” being the ultimate goal.

One of the ultimate goals of water management is total cost recovery, however, this needs to be considered from the perspective of an affordable water bill.

From the point of view of asset management of a water company, there is a lot of value going on. Every percentage of gain in efficiency could have a beneficial effect on the water production cost and on the water bill. New disruptive technologies like intelligent metering and smart water networks will lead to beneficial effects and will allow, for example, more correct sizing of the water assets or to lower the non-revenue water by detecting leakages.

Today, emerging technologies of smart metering based on IoT will accelerate the way to a smart water network. Current daily challenges such as pressure losses, fraud or reverse flow, to name a few, can be detected in real-time at the office, even before the customer is affected.

Consumers in many countries feel the effect of increasing operating and capital costs as water and wastewater tariff growth accelerates. The increasing inflation, the climate change impact, the need for proper asset management, the impact of international conflicts on the energy and construction market and the increasing customer expectations represent major changes with impact on the tariff levels.

Our Specialist Group is organizing a workshop at the WWC in Toronto (August 2024) to discuss the tariff evolution from last years, identify the major challenges and their impact and assess the tendencies for the following years. The conclusions will be published on this platform.

The Toronto edition 2024 of the ‘International Statistics for Water Services’ released at the IWA Water World Congress (11-15 August 2024) is an initiative from the IWA Specialist Group on Statistics and Economics (chaired by Ed Smeets, The Netherlands) and coordinated by the Working Group Statistics (chaired by Ann Bijnens, De Watergroep, Belgium).

The International Water Association (IWA) is a worldwide network of professionals, which aims to exchange scientific and professional knowledge, provided by academics and water managers, covering many aspects of the water cycle. Our Specialist Group on Statistics and Economics aims to provide a forum to debate how utilities are financed, how their various water tariff structures are, which indicators of performance they use, how they manage efficiency, etc. To achieve these goals, workshops and seminars are organized annually, and papers and books are written with the scope of sharing information and experiences that focus both on fundamental and on practical issues to be considered for the economic and responsible behavior of water utilities.

By means of international surveys, the Working Group Statistics provides professional information on water abstraction, consumption, charges and regulation at the country and city levels. So, we are glad to present this edition of our ‘International Statistics for Water Services’ with an update of data from 46 countries and more than 250 cities.

This Toronto 2024 report, in particular the charges and consumption sections, focuses on the water consumption of households. All the definitions of the several parameters have been discussed and fine-tuned by the members of the Working Group Statistics. For the quantitative information on population, production volumes etc., the years 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 and 2022 are included. The information about tariffs is based on the consumption of 100 m³ and 200 m³ in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021 and 2023. Concerning water charges, making time series is rather difficult, because of variation in the exchange rate in time, when recalculating the local valuta in US dollars.

The water prices do not necessarily reflect the full cost of water services, because some parts of the costs may be covered by sources other than the customer. In some cases, for example, there can be a political or social motivation to ensure that water is supplied at a socially acceptable price. Of course, there are many other factors affecting price levels, but these were out of the scope of this survey.

You are invited to take a closer look at the Copenhagen statistics and build your own graphs. I hope that the facts and figures will add a plus value to your job. Keep in mind that this survey is on a world scale and that you can easily down drill to your country, capital or a particular city.

The most difficult challenge in making this report is to find the right contact person(s) for the countries. This single point of contact must be able to deliver, at the same time, data for the water sector and some country indicators. If your country is not listed in the Toronto report and if you want to volunteer to provide us with the valuable data of your country, please let us know and send us your contact details to IWA@dewatergroep.be

Renato Parena, honorary chairman of the Specialist Group, for the Italian water services, launched the concept of the survey in the early 1990’s. Since that time we have been producing the biennial statistics of water services worldwide. To ‘keep up with the times’ we are proud to present the digital edition of the Statistics for the fifth time, which offers more possibilities than ever before.

Thanks to IWA, we have moved to a digital publishing platform. This will enable greater access to the statistics and permit us to update the data on a regularly base.

Special thanks to our sponsors BDO Romania and STRAT369 Consulting Malaysia who have made it possible that we can offer you this digital platform free to use.

Our main concern is the reliability of the data and quality control. Of course, it is evident that for the data quality we depend on the single points of contact who provided us with the data.

Thanks to all water professionals who helped obtain the data for this survey. Thanks to their effort we are able to give a valuable overview of important aspects of water services worldwide.