WATER TARIFFS AND AFFORDABILITY IN URBAN WATER SUPPLY AND WASTEWATER SYSTEMS
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Date
2022-05
Authors
Mussatayev, Yeldar
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nazarbayev University School of Engineering and Digital Sciences
Abstract
Water affordability is determined by the water supply and sanitation pricing policy in
modern urbanized cities. There is no transparent, internationally recognized system
for determining the water affordability for the household concerning income. Moreover,
reputable organizations dealing with global water issues mainly collect data on
the water source, delivery, household consumption, and the charge over a two-year
period, which makes determining water affordability complex and not operational. In
this Thesis, we use data from the International Water Association expert community
on water source and delivery utilized by over 50 countries in 2010-2018, consumption
and charges for over 280 major cities in 2010-2019. Significantly, the population
of these countries is about 3.4 billion people, which is comparable to 44 % of the
earth’s entire population. In addition, to determine the global availability of water
and wastewater in countries and cities, we supplemented the dataset with the data on
population, geographic location, income group, according to the World Bank, minimum
wage, exchange rate and other required information. The problematic aspect
of the available dataset is the multiple missing values. In order to analyze and forecast
for the future period, we used machine learning models to fill the missing data,
predict future indicators, and develop a model to determine water availability. The
thresholds we established correspond to internationally accepted indicators of 150
litres of water per person per day and 3 % of the monthly minimum wage ratio to
the monthly water bill. As a result of the successful development and application of
the model, we projected the total use of water sources, delivery and consumption for
a similar period to the available data. We carried out a detailed prediction by the
country for the following two-year period, where we identified nations according to
the affordability coefficient. Thus, the extended model could assist determine future
shortages or surplus of water sources, predict water delivery and consumption by
households, and identify countries with affordable and unaffordable water tariffs.
Description
Keywords
Type of access: Gated Access, Research Subject Categories::TECHNOLOGY, water supply, sanitation pricing policy, water affordability, urban water supply, wastewater systems
Citation
Mussatayev, Y. (2022). Water Tariffs and Affordability in Urban Water Supply and Wastewater Systems (Unpublished master's thesis). Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan