Medición de la calidad del agua mediante indicadores. Relación entre éstos y las tarifas de abastecimiento

The quality of the water intended for human consumption can be evaluated depending on a set of characteristics. Many different indicators allowing to integrate the information of this set in a only value or global index have been proposed in the literature. On the other hand, the users must pay a price for the water that they consume. In this paper both aspects have been considered: water quality and familiar expense for its consumption. Two principal objectives are approached. The first one deal with the comparison of three global indicators of water quality applied to the most recent information on superficial water that provides the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar. The second objective is the study of the relation between the quality of the superficial water for human consumption, and the expense that it supposes to the homes. The results confirm the existence of a positive and statistically significant relation between the three indicators of quality used, whereas there is no empirical evidence of such relation between the concepts of quality and expense.