Management of non-revenue water: a case study of the water supply in Lusaka,Zambia
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Date
2018
Authors
Chabe, Patrick
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
Management of Non-Revenue Water (NRW) has been undergoing several and continuous
transformations over the past two decades. The International Water Association (IWA) as well
as other key stakeholders have been trying to find the ‘Best Practices’ in managing non-revenue
water so as to help water utility companies reduce water losses and subsequent loss of revenue.
In Zambia, the passing of the water supply and sanitation act no 28 in 1997 led to the
establishment of water utility companies. The Non-Revenue Water National Technical Task
Force was formed by the Government in 2014 as a national strategy for management of NRW.
The main objective of this study was to, “investigate the non-revenue water levels in the water
service delivery in Lusaka and to assess the adopted management practices to manage nonrevenue
water and thereafter come up with some recommendations that would help improve
the current strategies”. Both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as well as document
review and participant observation were used in data gathering. The findings revealed that the
NRW is at 44%, with the main contributors being physical losses, commercial losses and
unbilled authorised consumption, each contributing 45%, 38% and 17%, respectively. The
physical losses are mainly due to the poor state of the infrastructure which has led to high levels
of leakages and pipe bursts. Metering errors and water theft are the main sources of commercial
losses, while fire hydrants for firefighting as well as new connections and reconnections which
had not been assigned service, due to lack of meters or negligence on the part of the company
personnel, are the main sources of unbilled authorised consumption. The recommended
management practices by the International Water Association to augment the overall ‘nonrevenue
water strategy’ are not wholly being implemented because of the poor state of
infrastructure which seems to impede the efforts aimed at reducing NRW. To this effect, there’s
an urgent need to undertake a complete overhaul of the existing network in stages starting with
the most problematic ones. The current level of NRW may not be a true reflection of the actual
situation because about half of the connections are not metered.
Key words: NRW, Real loss, Apparent loss, Unbilled authorized consumption, Leakages,
Management, Strategy
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Non-Revenue Water management--Zambia , Unbilled authorised consumption--Zambia