Definition Non Revenue Water

Non revenue water represents water that has been produced and is lost before it reaches the customer either through leaks through theft or through legal usage for which no payment is made.

Definition non revenue water. Part of this lost water can be retrieved by appropriate technical and managerial actions. Unbilled authorized consumption usually a minor component of water balance apparent losses and real losses. Losses can be real losses through leaks sometimes also referred to as physical losses or apparent losses for example through theft or metering inaccuracies. The need to manage nrw better and protect precious water resources has become increasingly important.

Non revenue water spaghetti network repairs and leaks. Losses can be real losses through leaks sometimes also referred to as physical losses or. It s water that is pumped or produced but is subsequently lost or otherwise unaccounted for in the system. Eventually costs associated with theft evaporation faulty metering poor data gathering and especially leakage are passed on to the ratepayer.

Especially the water losses in the distribution systems are obvious when analysing data from water utilities. Definition terminology and approach until the early 1990s there were no reliable and standardized methods for accounting for water losses. Leakage management performance was measured in terms of unaccounted for water since this term had no generally accepted definition there was wide room for interpretation. Non revenue water is one of the more persistent problems in municipal water systems.

We refer to it as non revenue water nrw or water that is pumped and then lost or unaccounted for. Non revenue water is the difference between system input volume and billed authorized consumption and it consists of the following. Definition and computation of non revenue water according to both the iwa and the american water works association awwa non revenue water is equal to the total amount of water flowing into the water supply network from a water treatment plant the system input volume minus the total amount of water that industrial and domestic consumers are authorized to use the billed authorized consumption. Non revenue water nrw is water that has been produced and is lost before it reaches the customer.