Access to safe and sustainable drinking water services remains a significant challenge, particularly in rapidly urbanizing and climate-impacted urban and peri-urban areas. Traditional utilities, often operating under public-private partnerships, are frequently constrained by underinvestment, fragmented governance, and weak accountability, resulting in service gaps. Decentralized Drinking Water Services (DWS) offer adaptable, user-centered alternatives through locally tailored technologies and alternative water sources. However, their adoption is constrained by financial barriers, regulatory uncertainty, and limited community engagement. While previous studies have emphasized the technical and operational aspects of DWS, this study addresses a gap by examining how business model innovation can enable long-term adoption and scalability. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining a systematic literature review with interviews of private-sector providers, this research identifies Product-Service Systems, Social Enterprises, and Community-Based Management as key business models. Findings reveal that hybrid approaches, which bridge formal/informal, centralized/decentralized, and public/private boundaries, are central to navigating heterogeneous infrastructure configurations in diverse contexts. Providers must balance financial viability with equitable access, adapt to varying institutional capacities, and respond to evolving policy landscapes. The analysis shows that regions with advanced water infrastructure industries often shape service models in markets with more constrained resources, underscoring the need to adapt these transfers to local socio-political and cultural contexts. Scalable DWS delivery depends not only on technological innovation but also on coherent regulatory frameworks, inclusive governance, and financing strategies aligned with community affordability. Finally, the study calls for future policy efforts that prioritize coherent regulatory frameworks, including clear quality standards, permitting procedures for alternative water sources, mechanisms for public oversight, and community engagement to ensure long-term functionality and local ownership. • Identifies business models enabling Decentralized Drinking Water Services in urban and peri-urban areas. • Combines a systematic literature review with private-sector interviews. • Shows hybrid models bridging formal/informal and centralized/decentralized systems. • Highlights policy and regulations as key to scaling decentralized solutions. • Finds financial viability and equitable access as central trade-offs for providers.
Claire Cropper, Elizabeth Wulbrecht, Patrick Thomson, Aaron Dotson · 8 authors
Despite nationally reported metrics that suggest high levels of water security, approximately 12% of the United States of America (US) population is estimated to be water insecure based on the definition in United Nations (UN) SDG 6.1.1. Approximately half of these households are served by Decentralized Water Systems (DWS). In contrast, most research, engineering, innovation, and government programs are focused on Centralized Water Systems (CWS). In this perspective, we 1) characterize and define DWS using professional language common for CWS; 2) compare the social, economic, and regulatory responsibilities of stakeholders in each system; 3) outline existing strategies to professionalize this sector; and 4) propose research avenues to further professionalize DWS to ensure households served by these systems receive equitable water service. We demonstrate that while DWS share commonalities with CWS, decentralized systems are less formally structured; have more stakeholders between source and tap; and place much of the regulatory, finance, maintenance, and safety responsibilities on individual households. These responsibilities include ensuring water quantity and quality, selecting appropriate treatment technologies, finance of repairs and upgrades, and transporting water. We propose strategies for researchers to aid in codeveloping innovative DWS solutions, ensuring relevant integration and community-driven models that better support decentralized communities.
Urban water provision sits at the intersection of public administration, infrastructure policy, and social equity. In the Philippines, high aggregate access to drinking water coexists with uneven service reliability, coverage gaps, and persistent inefficiency—patterns that point to governance constraints rather than hydrological scarcity alone. This study examines how institutional structures and incentive systems shape urban water governance outcomes across five cities in the Zamboanga Peninsula (Region IX): Zamboanga City, Pagadian City, Dipolog City, Dapitan City, and Isabela City. The analysis applies a multi-level governance and institutional-incentive framework to trace how authority, resources, and accountability are distributed among national regulators and sector agencies (notably the National Water Resources Board and the Local Water Utilities Administration), local government units, and city water providers. The study adopts a comparative case design using publicly verifiable secondary data from 2022–2024, including utility performance reports and administrative records on service delivery and operational efficiency. Key indicators include service coverage, continuity of supply, and non-revenue water, alongside governance features such as tariff-setting influence, access to national financing, technical capacity, and the presence of cross-agency coordination mechanisms. Findings show persistent intra-regional disparities under a common national legal framework. Zamboanga City reports the highest coverage and continuity, but also the highest system losses, while smaller systems demonstrate lower coverage and more intermittent supply with only marginally better efficiency. Across cases, outcomes align less with formal decentralization than with fragmented mandates, weak regulatory enforcement, politically constrained tariff governance, and limited performance-linked funding—conditions that weaken accountability and dilute responsibility for results. The study proposes reforms focused on (1) tighter regulatory and planning coordination across levels, (2) performance-conditioned financing tied to measurable service and efficiency targets, and (3) transparent, insulated tariff review with structured stakeholder engagement to improve equity, reliability, and sustainability in regional urban water services.
Water governance is critical to achieving a desirable state of sustainable water management, development and service provisioning in the Global South. However, it is a complex and multifaceted process. India is no exception, with structural deficiencies apparent in water regimes resulting from issues with dated institutional architecture impeding water sustainability transformations. This chapter refers to water governance in India as the social functions that encompass institutions, structures and processes at different levels and scales that guide the system to such a desirable state. Based on water governance literature and scholarship, this chapter discusses the relationships between water governance components to examine the state of water sustainability and challenges to expediting change in India. In this respect, it highlights the importance of legal, policy and institutional aspects of Indian water governance. The chapter then analyzes the national water policy framework and discusses the role of complexity in institutional arrangements in governing water resources by utilizing the institutional analysis and development framework. Using this analysis, the chapter highlights the necessity of implementing stronger legal, policy and institutional frameworks to expedite changes. The results emphasize the need for enhanced coordinated efforts and effective collaborations among stakeholders to develop a comprehensive and holistic water policy framework. The chapter recommends the integration of decentralized and evidence-based approaches, innovative financing, circular economy-focused policies, collaboration with private sector partners and inclusive policies to accelerate transformations towards water sustainability.
Urban populations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are confronted with significant difficulties in accessing water due to inadequate infrastructure, limited governance capabilities, and the exacerbating effects of climate change, which further exacerbate water scarcity. This article investigates the physiological, environmental, and economic hardships that arise from insufficient access to quality water and sanitation infrastructure in cities of the Global South. Available evidence suggests that more than two billion individuals living in urban areas do not have access to water sources that are appropriately maintained. This lack of access has led to the widespread occurrence of diarrhoea diseases, particularly in marginalized informal settlements. There is a cumulative impact on households, municipal authorities, and national budgets due to economic losses resulting from healthcare expenses, decreased productivity, and limitations in the industrial sector. Reports also demonstrate severe water shortages caused by distinct local circumstances while also highlighting shared challenges of contamination, intermittent supply, and affordability problems that worsen inequality. While there are promising decentralized options available, as well as water efficiency and reuse advancements, there are still significant gaps in financing. It is estimated that an annual amount of $114 billion is needed to ensure access to safe water and sanitation for the increasing urban populations in the developing nations. Effective collaboration on a global scale and local administrative changes are crucial for addressing these deficiencies in infrastructure and enhancing the ability of mega cities in the Global South to withstand the escalating hazards posed by climate change.
We exploit the public good attributes of Ganges water pollution cleanup and theoretically analyze an aggregate economy of two cities—Kanpur and Varanasi—through which the Ganges flows. Our specific objective is to study whether water pollution cleanup in these two cities ought to be provided in a centralized or in a decentralized manner. We first determine the efficient cleanup amounts that maximize the aggregate surplus from making the Ganges cleaner in the two cities. Second, we compute the optimal amount of water pollution cleanup in the two cities in a decentralized regime in which spending on cleanup is financed by a uniform tax on the city residents. Third, we ascertain the optimal amount of water pollution cleanup in the two cities in a centralized regime subject to equal provision of cleanup and cost sharing. Fourth, we show that if the two cities have the same preference for pollution cleanup, then centralization is preferable to decentralization as long as there is a spillover from pollution cleanup. Finally, we show that if the two cities have dissimilar preferences for pollution cleanup, then centralization is preferable to decentralization as long as the spillover exceeds a certain threshold.
This publication provides a detailed overview of India’s public–private partnership (PPP) environment, with a focus on the national, local government, and sector PPP landscapes. India has a reasonably mature PPP market with approximately $265 billion invested across 1,150 projects since 1990. Based on a decentralized enabling framework, the PPP ecosystem in the country has been supported by key preparation, financing, and delivery institutions, policies, guidelines, and standardized bidding documents. To attract increased private investments across infrastructure sectors, the government has recently introduced innovative PPP models such as the hybrid annuity model and toll–operate–transfer, which will play a critical role in implementing the India’s $81 billion National Asset Monetization Pipeline, and help finance the $15 trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline, 2020–2025.
Aaron Janzen, Achari Gopal, Irwin Samantha, Dore Mohammed
Many rural households do not have access to treated drinking water. However, some households may be in regions where a water treatment plant has excess capacity to supply some additional households. In such circumstances, small diameter low-pressure supply systems can be connected to major transmission lines to give these households access to water. These typically occur in locations that do not belong to recognized municipal or other local government. Such supply systems, commonly referred to as “trickle fill,” have been implemented in South America, Africa and Canada. This paper explains the concept of trickle fill supply systems. A user-friendly decision-making framework is proposed to assist the decision maker to determine whether the implementation of a trickle fill system is economically feasible for a given rural area. The decision-making assessment template (DMAT) takes into projects the economic, energy and carbon footprint changes. A case study for a rural municipality in the province of Alberta, Canada is presented to illustrate the value of the DMAT and the feasibility of trickle fill water supply as a solution. In this case study, a trickle fill water supply solution is found to be technically and economically viable and would reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint. It is shown that trickle fill solution can be implemented, resulting in an average cost of water to be $165 per month per household. This is higher than the affordability threshold of 2% of the median household income, but comparable to the cost that the end users currently pay for drinking water in the area. A capital grant from a higher level of government, or low interest rate financing, would reduce the end user costs to the level of the affordability criterion mentioned here. Hence, a trickle fill solution is worth investigating for some rural residents. Key words: Rural water systems; economic feasibility; carbon footprint, small diameter water distribution pipelines.
Payments for watershed services programs (PWS) have become a prominent tool to protect ecosystems and hydrological services but little is known about where these innovative financing tools and governance systems emerge and persist. In 2008, the Mexican government started a program where they match funding from local partners to establish user-financed PWS programs, leading to the creation of 145 programs between 2008 and 2019. We study the factors that led to the emergence and persistence of these local PWS programs across Mexico. We assemble a unique database on these programs, as well as biophysical, economic and socio-cultural, and institutional variables, at the municipality level. We use logistic regression to analyze the variables that led to the emergence and persistence of PWS. We find that PWS programs are more likely to emerge in municipalities with lower opportunity costs; that are wealthier and more populated; that have complementary conservation programs; and that have more collective land tenure and protected areas. PWS programs are more likely to persist in municipalities with poorer water quality and more floods; that have more protected areas; and that have a non-governmental organization or water utility involved as the local counterpart. These results suggest that the emergence and persistence of local, user-financed PWS could be facilitated through better information on the condition of watershed services to signal need for hydrological protection; capacity building and institutional strengthening efforts that provide the social capital needed for collective action; and involvement of decentralized non-state actors that are politically neutral and can provide more sustainable financing.
Open access
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
This chapter examines the interplay between existing physical works and social irrigation behavior in a tank system in Madhya Pradesh, particularly the linkages between main system operators of the tank and main canals and farmers. Breakdowns in the organizational interface between farmers and main system managers account for a large portion of diminished productivity of irrigation water. Community development analysts recognized that conflict existed between individual interests and the requirements of collective community development action. The Balwantray Mehta Committee, appointed in 1957 to look into the problems of the Community Development Program, suggested a three-tier system of democratic decentralization known as Panchayat Raj. The Integrated Rural Development Program as implemented did not succeed in decentralizing authority. The traditional village had a more or less autonomous political structure with little direct linkage to state bureaucracy.
Water security involves multiple interrelated policy challenges that economists often analyze separately. This article examines the issue of water security from an economic perspective, identifying economic causes and consequences of infrastructure financing deficits, water misallocation, and water risks. To help address these challenges, we review trends in defining and measuring water security and present an economic framework for assessing the costs and benefits of policies aimed at enhancing water security. We show that policies aimed at increasing water security to meet basic water needs, ensure more equitable water distribution, or reduce water risks rarely align with conventional measures of economic efficiency. We argue that water security requires strengthening and coordinating institutions to address multiple objectives and that these institutional arrangements are polycentric in nature, balancing decentralized decision-making with coordination across sectors and political borders. The issue of water security underscores why economists need to take institutions more seriously if they are to provide credible analyses of policy responses to water management challenges.
Arthur Hrast Essenfelder, Francesca Larosa, Paolo Mazzoli, Stefano Bagli · 9 authors
This study proposes a climate service named Smart Climate Hydropower Tool (SCHT) and designed as a hybrid forecast system for supporting decision-making in a context of hydropower production. SCHT is technically designed to make use of information from state-of-art seasonal forecasts provided by the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS) combined with a range of different machine learning algorithms to perform the seasonal forecast of the accumulated inflow discharges to the reservoir of hydropower plants. The machine learning algorithms considered include support vector regression, Gaussian processes, long short-term memory, non-linear autoregressive neural networks with exogenous inputs, and a deep-learning neural networks model. Each machine learning model is trained over past decades datasets of recorded data, and forecast performances are validated and evaluated using separate test sets with reference to the historical average of discharge values and simpler multiparametric regressions. Final results are presented to the users through a user-friendly web interface developed from a tied connection with end-users in an effective co-design process. Methods are tested for forecasting the accumulated seasonal river discharges up to six months in advance for two catchments in Colombia, South America. Results indicate that the machine learning algorithms that make use of a complex and/or recurrent architecture can better simulate the temporal dynamic behaviour of the accumulated river discharge inflow to both case study reservoirs, thus rendering SCHT a useful tool in providing information for water resource managers in better planning the allocation of water resources for different users and for hydropower plant managers when negotiating power purchase contracts in competitive energy markets.
The year 2018 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of David McCullough's page-turning The Johnstown Flood, still the most authoritative account of Johnstown's disaster. It is fitting that Neil Coleman would publish a new book in 2018 that uses quantitative science to allow readers to better assess who was responsible for the May 31, 1889, disaster and to clear up some critical ambiguities. It is a major update to the story.The flood was caused by the breaking of a dam owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a group of Pittsburgh industrialists, financiers, and business men. In a horrifying display of the power of nature, some 2,200 residents perished. The flood resulted in the biggest news story of the period and a national scandal. While the press was quick to harshly criticize the club members and the shoddy South Fork Dam, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) launched an investigation by three of the most qualified hydraulic engineers in the county on the cause of the dam failure. The report was highly anticipated but was suppressed and not released until two years after the disaster. It largely exonerated the club, presenting calculations that showed that the dam would have been overtopped and destroyed even if it had been repaired to its original condition when it was built by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the Main Line of Public Works. The disaster, it seemed, was inevitable and the club members were not liable despite the faulty repairs done to their dam.In his new book Neil Coleman uses scientific evidence to fill gaps and correct misinformation in the historical literature. The author and his team, all associated with the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, spent five years critically examining the South Fork Dam and the ASCE report, finding discrepancies, lapses in key observations, and excessive reservoir input estimates. The author finds that report's conclusions were wrong and, very likely, altered by agents of the Pennsylvania Railroad and associates of members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. In this new book and previous published articles (see “Revisiting the Timing and Events Leading to and Causing the Johnstown Flood of 1889,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 80, no. 3 [2013]) the author finds that the South Fork Dam would have survived if it had not been lowered by three feet and its discharge pipes removed. The author also confirms the existence of a second, emergency spillway on the southwest abutment of the South Fork Dam, a theory first advanced by Walter Frank in “Civil Engineering” (1988). The presence of that spillway would have saved the dam in 1889 had the top of the dam not been lowered.Coleman also solves the mystery about who removed the discharge pipes at the base of the dam and when that happened. The fifty club workers who had begun work at the South Fork Dam removed them, not former congressman John Reilly, who was technically still owner of the property. The pipes needed to be removed to drain the lake and begin repairs to the embankment. As readers of David McCullough's book will remember, without the discharge pipes the lake level could not be controlled.Coleman's historical evidence includes new biographic information on the ASCE committee and the presidents of the organization during the years following the Johnstown Flood. James Francis, considered to be the father of hydraulic engineering in the United States, worked with two other highly qualified engineers on the report. Coleman reports that two subsequent ASCE presidents, Max Becker and William Shinn, had ties with Robert Pitcairn and Andrew Carnegie (both club members). Stating their intention to avoid having the ASCE be involved in lawsuits resulting from the flood, Becker and Shinn suppressed the release of the report. The life history of John Parke, the young engineer who witnessed the dam breach in 1889, is also presented.Much of the author's proof is evidence-based: LiDAR data on the remains of the dam and lakebed, calculations of water input and output at the lake, water levels at the main spillway, the storage capacity of the reservoir, and hydraulic movement. He also provides new data on the flood wave based on hydrological models and provides new flood-flow calculations for the flood wave the moment it struck the Conemaugh Viaduct, west of South Fork Borough. While a judgment on the scientific basis of the author's findings is beyond this reviewer's capability, the preponderance of evidence provides compelling support for the author's assumptions and findings.In lieu of blaming club members for the loss of life (other than Benjamin Ruff, the club's first president and developer), the author singles out Robert Pitcairn, who headed the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Pitcairn undoubtedly had previous concerns about the South Fork Dam and was near Johnstown on the day of the flood. He was a household name in Johnstown and had the opportunity to send explicit warnings by telegram to the flooded community. More people could have escaped and been saved if he had sent a direct warning. His hesitation likely cost many lives.The author has more at stake than just correcting history; he wants to hold engineers to a high professional and ethical standing. Coleman concludes that The engineering investigation of the Johnstown flood of 1889 is a tale of powerful men seeking to protect their reputations, then and now, by hijacking a safety investigation … and distorting its results. … In matters of public safety, when the lives of thousands and perhaps millions may hang in the balance, truth must somehow rise above the chaos that power and greed all too often inflict on it.Justice and closure are served by this new look at the Great Flood.
In the irrigated agricultural areas of Pakistan, the major sources of irrigation are canal water and groundwater. Due to the scarcity of canal water the dependency on groundwater is rapidly increasing in many areas of Pakistan. The groundwater is not only expensive, inadequate, and non-affordable for the small farmers but also of inferior quality. Much of the wastewater which is produced in urban and peri-urban areas is directly or indirectly used for irrigation without any kind of treatment. It appears that suitable technologies for decentralized treatment are avoided but other barriers to the wide adoption of the decentralized approach also exists. These barriers include lack of finance and suitable land, devoid of knowledge and skills and a lack of flexibility in official design standards. This study is an effort to check the status of treatment of the wastewater generated in Faisalabad: The area irrigated with wastewater in and around Faisalabad, quality of wastewater used to grow crops in wastewater irrigated areas, types of crops grown with wastewater, mechanism and composition of wastewater used and supplied to the farmers and farmer’s perception about the social and adverse impacts on human health and constraints in wastewater irrigation. To reduce these barriers several opportunities for improving wastewater management are to be considered via improved policies, institutional dialogues and financial mechanisms, which would reduce the risks in food chain contamination in agriculture practices. Effluent standards combined with incentives or enforcement can motivate improvements in water management by household and industrial sectors discharging wastewater from point sources. Segregation of chemical pollutants from urban wastewater facilitates treatment and reduces risk. Strengthening institutional capacity and establishing links between water delivery and sanitation sectors through inter-institutional coordination leads to more efficient management of wastewater and risk reduction. Key words: Wastewater irrigation, wastewater implication, constraints, farmer ‘perception, food chain contamination.
In this policy review, we analyze two payments for hydrological services matching programs operating in the Antigua water basin in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Mexico’s Matching Program was created to transition from the national payments for hydrological services program to programs that would be financed by local governments, local water users and the private sector. Based on the analysis of organizational documents and key informant interviews with institutional actors, we describe the distinctive origins and organizational structures of these two programs, and how these differences have led to unique challenges for each program. We conclude that payments for ecosystem services programs that incorporate community-level organization and extensive technical assistance, along with expanded direct payments from ecosystem service users, have the greatest potential for achieving long-term sustainability.
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
In Albania there are plenty of natural water resources, a fraction of these reserves cover the need of population for fresh, clean drinking water. But this sector presents several critical problems related with water suppliers. It seems they have not completed the decentralization process; they depend on state subsidies to cover losses from uncollectible bills. Literature shows traditional forms of financing of water supplier in different economies (developed or not). One of the classic financial forms is to increase the rate paid bills. The water should be seen as product that has its own market and an equilibrium price. But do the citizens of Vlora city perceive in adequate way this concept? Should be an economical problem for them if the water tariffs increase or are they using alternative resources of drinking water? The article aims to give a descriptive overview of water industry and suppliers in Albania and especially empirically conclusions about of the situation in Vlora city, focusing on the perceptions of citizens. Are the accumulated financial losses of water supplier correlated with the citizens’ perception about water as a public good? It's been used data through a structured questionnaire (Zeneli F., WP-Questionnaire, 2015) about 160 families, were part of the survey; also data from General Directorate of Water in Albania; elaborated using statistical software IBM SPSS 21, to identify link between determinants of drinking water demand in the sector. The main conclusion is that citizens see the water provider service a public good, while from water suppliers water distributed is their product that provides their market position and their economic sustainability. Let this paper be one of the first in the topic to determine drinking water demand determinants in Vlora city.
Manfred van Afferden, Jaime Cardona, Mi-Yong Lee, Ali Subah · 5 authors
Planners and decision-makers in the wastewater sector are often confronted with the problem of identifying adequate development strategies and most suitable finance schemes for decentralized wastewater infrastructure. This paper research has focused on providing an approach in support of such decision-making. It is based on basic principles that stand for an integrated perspective towards sustainable wastewater management. We operationalize these principles by means of a geographic information system (GIS)-based approach 'Assessment of Local Lowest-Cost Wastewater Solutions'--ALLOWS. The main product of ALLOWS is the identification of cost-effective local wastewater management solutions for any given demographic and physical context. By using universally available input data the tool allows decision-makers to compare different wastewater solutions for any given wastewater situation. This paper introduces the ALLOWS-GIS tool. Its application and functionality are illustrated by assessing different wastewater solutions for two neighboring communities in rural Jordan.