The IWA Performance Indicator System for water services is now recognized as a worldwide reference. Since it first appearance in 2000, the system has been widely quoted, adapted and used in a large number of projects both for internal performance assessment and metric benchmarking. Water professionals have benefited from a coherent and flexible system, with precise and detailed definitions that in many cases have become a standard. The system has proven to be adaptable and it has been used in very different contexts for diverse purposes. The Performance Indicators System can be used in any organization regardless of its size, nature (public, private, etc.) or degree of complexity and development. The third edition of Performance Indicators for Water Supply Services represents a further improvement of the original manual. It contains a reviewed and consolidated version of the indicators, resulting from the real needs of water companies worldwide that were expressed during the extensive field testing of the original system. The indicators now properly cover bulk distribution and the needs of developing countries, and all definitions have been thoroughly revised. The confidence grading scheme has been simplified and the procedure to assess the results- uncertainty has been significantly enhanced. In addition to the updated contents of the original edition, a large part of the manual is now devoted to the practical application of the system. Complete with simplified step-by-step implementation procedures and case studies, the manual provides guidelines on how to adapt the IWA concepts and indicators to specific contexts and objectives. This new edition of Performance Indicators for Water Supply Services is an invaluable reference source for all those concerned with managing the performance of the water supply industry, including those in the water utilities as well as regulators, policy-makers and financial agencies.

The public water supply, urban wastewater and urban waste management services are essential to the well-being of citizens, public health and economic activities. These are generally provided under natural or legal monopoly, so there is no incentive for utilities to search for greater efficiency and effectiveness and as such there is an increasing prevalence of such risks for users. For these reasons, society can significantly benefit from the existence of regulatory intervention capable of introducing greater balance in the relationship between utilities and their users. The Regulation of Water and Waste Services: An Integrated Approach (Rita-Ersar) presents a practical integrated regulatory approach to these water and waste services. This approach is called the ARIT-ERSAR model and it is capable of contributing to the promotion of access by citizens to these services that is tending towards the universal. These services are provided with suitable quality by utilities at socially acceptable prices and with an acceptable level of risk. This approach consists of a regulation model with two major areas of intervention: structural regulation of the sector and regulation of the performance of the utilities. The components of structural regulation are contributions to organisation, legislation, information and sectoral capacity building. The performance regulation of utilities consists of legal and contractual regulation, economic regulation, quality of service regulation, drinking water quality regulation and user interface regulation. Author: Jaime Melo Baptista, Chairperson of the Water and Waste Services Regulatory Authority, ERSAR, Portugal