Question

Not all water produced by suppliers is sold to customers. Some is used for other purposes and some is not paid for. Other amounts are "lost". What are those other purposes? Why might some water not be paid for? How does a utility lose water?

Hint: research the term Unaccounted for Water and use your findings to answer the three questions above. A good place to start is Water and Revenue Losses by Lynn P. Wallace, American Water Works Foundation, Dec. 1987.

Answer 1

As it is given that not all water is being sold. Unaccounted of water is known as difference between the net production and consumption of water. The water that is not sold will not be counted in consumption portion. Water that is not being sold can be used for some other purposes and that water may be termed as water loss as it is not accounted for the payment purpose. The loss may contain water that is being used for their own consumption, there is some kind of meter loss and little bit of any other consumption. Around 8% of total water comes under unaccounted water.

Above all were some kind of losses or we can say the purpose for which the water was not being sold. But now there is also some portion of water that is being supplied but is not being paid for that. The amount being paid is known as revenue water. It is only paid as per the bill that is being shown. Some portion of water is used in unauthorized way as they don't generate bills and due to that the payment is not being done and if there is small amount of loss also in the pipelines then also that portion is not accounted in the bills. The revenue water is less than than net accounted water.

Now we will discuss about how a utility lose water. There are various ways about how can loss of water can be there in any utility and these are listed below :

• Leakage through the pipelines at the time of water supply.
• Sometimes the storage overflows as if the capacity is less and water inflow is more at that moment of time.
• Leakage at house connections.
• Other minute uses at the supply area for own consumption of the utility providing water.