Prospective Models for Water Service Demand and Price Analyses

• Main Authors: Alberto del Villar, Joaquín Melgarejo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: Water
• Subjects: water demand simulation models; water management; water prices; water demand
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/6/1613

One way to address the practical challenges of the current problems of water services is through demand-side measures. These types of measures impact on demand through price changes or on water use control, considering that the impacts of these measures would be extremely useful in order to implement an adequate policy mix. One of the objectives of this paper is to show the possibilities of water management tools, particularly the use of prospective prices and demand models, in order to anticipate scarcity scenarios. This can best be done using better predictive models. Current computer tools provide a good basis for developing applications to perform prospective analysis on water prices and demand. Through simulation, we can try to optimize financial flows of costs and revenues based on the behavior of certain variables. This aims to find a better combination of price levels for urban water uses, making it possible to adjust the chargeback mechanisms, the level of cost recovery of investments, and the allocation between user types. This paper aims to show the advantages of these tools and illustrates its usefulness with a registered model that allows simulations of potential scenarios resulting from certain management measures.