The Determinants of Non-Revenue Water in Balkan Countries

In Balkan countries, half of water quantity is being lost during the distribution process. Due to high percentage, this study empirically evaluates the determinants of non-revenue water for 180 service providers in Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, and Montenegro. Cross sectional data has been collected from International Bench-marking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities Database “IBNET”. This collected data covers period from year 2003 up to year 2015. Based on regression analysis, the findings indicate that, connection density network, labor cost percentage to operating cost, number of connections, production quantity per connection, consumption quantity per person per day, metering level ratio and operating unit cost, are significant with non-revenue water per connection indicator. However, to have in-depth analysis, International Water Association “IWA” recommends to depend on more than one non-revenue water indicator. Therefore, non-revenue water percentage indicator has been included here. A correlation analysis in this study shows that the more the metering level ratio and labor cost percentage relative to operating cost; the less the non-revenue water percentage. On the opposite side, the more the consumption per person, production per connection, number of population, network connection density, operating cost per cubic meter sold and number of connections, the more the non-revenue water percentage, other things being constant. It seems those countries are suffering from large physical leakages and high commercial losses. To decrease those losses, coordination, amalgamations and multiple efforts are to be exerted from different parties as donation agencies, government entities and service providers.