Development of current condition assessment and target definition model for water balance practices in sustainable water loss management

In water distribution systems, water losses should be defined accurately and systematically. The water balance method is one of the most basic analyzes applied in water loss management. In this study, a new method was proposed to evaluate the data quality of water balance components and application levels of water balance practices by considering a total of 27 components. The developed model was applied in 4 pilot water administrations in Turkey. The weaknesses and strengths in water balance practices were determined by considering scoring in accordance with the dynamic structure of each administration. The quality of basic data measurement components and application levels of water balance practices were found to be at a good level in Administrations II and IV, at a poor level in Administration I, and at an average level in Administration III. Moreover, quality of water balance analysis and performance monitoring practices are at a good level in Administrations II and IV, and at a poor level in Administrations I and II. Thus the components that need improvement in each administration were identified and an improvement process was suggested. It is thought that this model will make a significant contribution to the testing of current application levels of water loss management components for practitioners and decision makers.