Appropriate Design and Evaluation of Water Use Metrics and Benchmarks
Authors:
- Benedykt Dziegielewski, Southern Illinois University
- Jack Kiefer, Hazen and Sawyer
Because of increasing competition and costs for available water supplies, water utilities and regulators have an increasing need for meaningful performance indicators and benchmarks for measuring and comparing water use. Furthermore, utility managers and water researchers alike have a natural tendency to compare measurements of water use to gauge changes over time and differences among water utilities.
Historically, the lack of a consistent definition of terms and practices has complicated the water industry’s ability to measure, standardize, and compare utility performance. Even when precise definitions exist (e.g., population served) many utilities are challenged when asked to provide accurate numbers and rely instead on best available estimates. Evaluating water use of an individual utility over time is difficult enough, but the lack of standardization of terms and categories of water production and use creates an even greater challenge when comparing performance among utilities. Therefore, it is important that metrics and benchmarks of water use are explicitly defined and carefully evaluated in terms of their appropriate use.
This article discusses some new and several commonly used performance metrics and benchmarks regarding water use efficiency. The purpose is to provide guidance on alternative methods of measuring water use and how these methods are most appropriately used to compare and evaluate water efficiency. This article presents a summary of the water use metrics study funded by the AWWA Technical and Education Council and sponsored by the Water Conservation Division (Dziegielewski & Kiefer, 2009), which can also be found on the AWWA website.
