The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
A water utility turns raw water into a safe supply at the tap and returns used water to the environment treated. Its performance is measured in continuity, quality, losses and cost, and its failures under heat, drought, flood and power loss are among the most direct ways systemic risk reaches households. This page sets out what a utility depends on, how its state is measured, and what the evidence serves.
Water NexusWireframe of the working environment, not a live screen. Names and values are placeholders.
Utility asset condition and continuity during outages. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Pumping and treatment are among the largest electricity users in many cities. A grid interruption becomes a supply interruption within hours unless storage and backup power are in place.
Non-revenue water, the share produced but not billed, is often a third or more of production. Leakage wastes energy and treated water and hides the true margin of supply.
Drought lowers raw-water availability and raises its temperature and contaminant concentration; flood brings turbidity and pathogens that overwhelm treatment.
Buried assets age unseen. Tariffs below cost defer renewal, and deferred renewal raises failure rates. Readiness evidence links the engineering state to the financial one.
Where this page’s subject sits in the world: boundaries and context now, the field layers when the interactive map loads.
MapWorld map in the Equal Earth projection, land and boundaries from Natural Earth (public domain). The interactive map loads through the Nexus Foundry plugin (globe or flat view).
The systems this subject touches, the method at its core and the decisions it informs.
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Continuity of supply | hours per day | daily | Network sensors, customer records | OBSERVED |
| Non-revenue water | percent of system input volume | monthly | Production and billing records | OFFICIAL |
| Energy intensity | kilowatt hours per cubic metre | monthly | Metered consumption | OBSERVED |
| Residual chlorine compliance | percent of samples in range | monthly | Laboratory sampling | OFFICIAL |
| Raw-water turbidity | nephelometric turbidity units | continuous | Intake sensors | OBSERVED |
| Days of storage at current demand | days | daily | Reservoir and tank levels | OFFICIAL |
| Backup power endurance | hours | per asset | Asset register | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| IBNET (World Bank) | Benchmarking indicators for utilities worldwide | Terms per database |
| WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme | Household access to safely managed water and sanitation | Free and open, attribution |
| Utility operational records | SCADA, laboratory and billing data | By agreement with each utility |
| National regulators | Tariff, performance and compliance reports | Public records, terms per regulator |
| Grid operator interruption data | Outage duration and frequency by feeder | By agreement |
Water Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Utility boards and managers | Where to invest first: backup power, leakage, treatment capacity or storage | Dependency map with endurance hours; stress-test results by works |
| Regulators and ministries | Whether tariffs and subsidies cover the cost of resilient service | Energy intensity and renewal backlog against revenue |
| Lenders and development finance | Whether a utility is ready for financing and what diligence questions remain | Readiness evidence prepared with GRA, with every claim labelled |
Pipes and plant deteriorate with age, material, soil conditions and pressure cycles; much of the network is buried and inspected rarely. Failures cluster in cold snaps, droughts that shrink soils and after pressure transients. Leakage wastes treated water and energy and can let contaminants in when pressure drops.
Continuity depends on electricity for pumping and treatment, on chemical supply chains, on control systems and on skilled staff. Storage provides a buffer measured in hours to days. When it runs out, outages spread, and restoring pressure safely takes time and flushing. Cyber intrusion into operational technology is a growing concern.
Condition assessment and failure-rate models built from repair records, inspections and spatial statistics. Records are often incomplete, especially for older assets.
Network models simulate pressure and flow under failure scenarios, with water and environmental engineering. Models need calibration against field measurements.
Mapping links to power, chemicals and communications and testing outage scenarios. Detailed results are security-sensitive and stay with the operator.
| Method | Applied here | Canonical page |
|---|---|---|
| Water and environmental engineering | Water and environmental engineering in this field | STEM Commons |
| Sensors, IoT and observation networks | Sensors, IoT and observation networks in this field | STEM Commons |
| Forecasting and time-series analysis | Forecasting and time-series analysis in this field | STEM Commons |
| Uncertainty quantification and model validation | Uncertainty quantification and model validation in this field | STEM Commons |
| Geospatial information systems | Geospatial information systems in this field | STEM Commons |
Utility records vary widely in completeness, and non-revenue water is often an estimate rather than a measurement. Stress tests depend on the dependency map being complete, and buried assets are rarely fully known. Water Nexus does not rate utilities; it prepares evidence they and their regulators can act on.
| Link | Relationship | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Water and wastewater assets | Related topic | Utility service challenges link to lifeline engineering and asset restoration. |
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.