Servicios de Abastecimiento y Saneamiento - La Tribuna del Agua

WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION SERVICES
• Every user has to pay for the service, including
public users. A free service triggers is water
misuse and abuse.
• Cross-subsidising should be avoided as much
as possible. If it is necessary to subsidise the less
well-off, then it sholud be done in a direct way.
• Long-term financial planning for the services,
given that this is the only way to ensure investments
and combine them with cost recovery and
solidarity. Subsidies have to be a possibility to finance
construction costs for water infrastructures
and not maintenance, exploitation, replacement
and environmental costs, as long as this is possible
for those with a lower payment capability.
• All users – urban, industrial and agricultural –
should take on their portion of responsibility.
Business models for water services need redefining:
The steady drop in availability and consumption
in many local spheres as a consequence of
global change and new demand management policies
is conditioning economic results of service
operators as these depend greatly on the volume
being managed.
The operation of water services has expanded
into fields and responsibilities that were never previously
considered, such as those of management
and treatment of storms or flood prevention. These
new responsibilities increase costs and should
be included in the equations that financially regulate
the services. Furthermore, the new challenges
require greater effort from R+D, the costs of which
should also be viewed as part of the service costs.
It is necessary to organise the complete
and sustainable recovery of costs.
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The urgent need for
integrated efficiency
POSITIONING DOCUMENT
Efficiency in managing resources, infrastructu-
res and water services needs to filter through into
all the decision-making processes – from strategic
planning to the operation of systems in normal
circumstances and during contingencies. In fact,
management models that integrate the com-
plete service cycle (supply, sanitation and reuse)
into one sole manager are usually highly efficient.
Efficiency should be valued and its more glo-
bal acceptance pursued through all the environ-
mental, social and economic considerations of the
many players that intervene in the various water
management processes in the urban medium. The
presence of energy has been growing in importance
in the solutions for emerging challenges in
water management – from the greater legal requirements
in quality for the various uses to the
inclusion of alternative resources such as desalination,
including protecting water bodies subject
to discharges to intensive sanitation processes for
sewage water. Any new solution must be accompanied
by a complete evaluation of its efficiency
and energy needs in its implementation and operation.
Global systems evaluation and their various
options based on water esteems and ecological
footprints or within parameters such as virtual
water needed in each case are mechanisms that
facilitate a complete analysis.
Guaranteeing the supply is a commitment for
the manager. This requires regulation, models and
efficient management and tools to undetake ope-