Water Conservation is essential to the sustainable use of our water resources. Reducing the levels of Unaccounted For Water (UFW) will help to mitigate the demand on our raw water sources (lakes, rivers etc.) and reduce the risk of recontamination of water networks. It will also improve the level of service delivery and overall water quality for consumers.
Water Conservation is not a one off task but is a long term, never ending engagement requiring an on going commitment of personnel and resources. Water conservation requires governments, local authorities, industries, the agricultural sector and homeowners to get involved in the process. It has to be a combined effort to preserve our largest natural resource.
Some published reports show that UFW in many counties is typically in the range of 40 to 50 per cent. An easy question to ask is why so much water is going to waste? and what are we going to do about it? The Report by the Local Government Management Services Board Service Indicators in Local Authorities 2008 points out that UFW is NOT the same as leaking water, as there are other factors such as unauthorised use, unmetered connections, metering errors etc. Nevertheless, it is a fact that there is a considerable quantity of high quality drinking water lost from the system every day, both from the mains network and from the customer side. The new heightened awareness by the general public of the critical condition of our water network is, in the current situation, an advantage. Consumers will appreciate that extensive water conservation measures are needed, and hopefully they will also appreciate that such measures come with a price tag.
The problem must be tackled on two fronts: losses in the public network and losses on the consumer side. Both issues are equally important, and both sides of the problem must be dealt with over the next few years if we are to reduce water losses to an economic level.