Affordability of Household Water and Sewerage Services in Great Britain*

Sawkins, John W; Dickie, Valerie

doi:10.1111/j.1475-5890.2005.00011.x

Cited by 25 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…This benchmark is similar to the OECD recommendation that household water bills not consume more than 3–5% of household income [27,28]. The Unitary Universalist Service Committee advocates for 2.5% of monthly household income [10,26,29] which is similar to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard that households spend no more than 2% on water and 4.5% of median household income on both water and wastewater services [30]. The U.S. EPA threshold of 4.5% is similar to the World Bank income benchmark of 5% [1].…”

Section: Assessing and Measuring Water Affordabilitymentioning

confidence: 54%

A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States

Mack¹,

Wrase²

2017

PLoS ONE

120

128

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While basic access to clean water is critical, another important issue is the affordability of water access for people around the globe. Prior international work has highlighted that a large proportion of consumers could not afford water if priced at full cost recovery levels. Given growing concern about affordability issues due to rising water rates, and a comparative lack of work on affordability in the developed world, as compared to the developing world, more work is needed in developed countries to understand the extent of this issue in terms of the number of households and persons impacted. To address this need, this paper assesses potential affordability issues for households in the United States using the U.S. EPA’s 4.5% affordability criteria for combined water and wastewater services. Analytical results from this paper highlight high-risk and at-risk households for water poverty or unaffordable water services. Many of these households are clustered in pockets of water poverty within counties, which is a concern for individual utility providers servicing a large proportion of customers with a financial inability to pay for water services. Results also highlight that while water rates remain comparatively affordable for many U.S. households, this trend will not continue in the future. If water rates rise at projected amounts over the next five years, conservative projections estimate that the percentage of U.S. households who will find water bills unaffordable could triple from 11.9% to 35.6%. This is a concern due to the cascading economic impacts associated with widespread affordability issues; these issues mean that utility providers could have fewer customers over which to spread the large fixed costs of water service. Unaffordable water bills also impact customers for whom water services are affordable via higher water rates to recover the costs of services that go unpaid by lower income households.

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Section: Assessing and Measuring Water Affordabilitymentioning

confidence: 54%

A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States

Mack¹,

Wrase²

2017

PLoS ONE

120

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The details of which can be found in [13]. Sawkins and Dickie [13] reported that there is no commonly agreed affordability benchmark in the UK. For England and Wales an indicative water affordability measure has been adopted by DEFRA (i.e.…”

Section: General Discussion -Towards An Affordability Benchmarkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A 10% fuel poverty threshold has been embedded within various government energy policy statements for several years [3]. The details of which can be found in [13]. Sawkins and Dickie [13] reported that there is no commonly agreed affordability benchmark in the UK.…”

Section: General Discussion -Towards An Affordability Benchmarkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affordability of household water and wastewater charges in Manukau City: a case study

Mahmood

Sharma

2009

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment

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Low-income households spend a substantial share of their income on utility services such as electricity, heating and water. The difficulty of these socially vulnerable consumers to absorb further price increases is often used as an argument against increasing rates. However, detailed quantitative information on the affordability of rate adjustments for low-income consumers is actually quite scarce. Much of the available information is based on total household's expenses. This study takes a more detailed look at the affordability of water and wastewater service's charges for low-income consumers in Manukau City. While there was no sufficient available data, the project finds that affordability is a problem for low-income consumers in Manukau. Given all household groups of income categories the percentage income spent on water and wastewater was determined and compared with an acceptable benchmark. It was found that the average amount spent on water and wastewater has increased at a higher rate (i.e. 26.84%) than the average income (i.e. 3.15%) in all income groups, and the burden of water and wastewater rates is increasing in terms of percentage of weekly income spent on it, especially, in the lower income earners category. The low-income earners spent 3.24% of their weekly income on water and wastewater service charges in 2001 and were spending 4.11% in 2006. The sewerage charge was 14.6% in 2001 and 13.3% in 2007, and proportion of household falling into this category has declined by 1.3% since 2001. The results showed that a higher number of households may have faced a financial hardship, since 2001. In order to make the government and water industries aware of this problem, the term "affordability" needs to be taken into account as an assistant of the assessment of household water and sewerage services in Manukau City or wider over New Zealand.

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“…The World Bank uses a benchmark set by the Pan‐American Health Organization, that households should spend no more than 5 per cent of their monthly income on water (World Bank, 2001). In the UK, the government considers water tariffs to be unaffordable if expenditure exceeds 3 per cent of household income, which is twice the current median spending ratio on water in the country (Sawkins and Dickie, 2005). A recent Human Development Report (UNDP, 2006) also suggests that no household should spend more than 3 per cent of its income on water.…”

Section: Impacts Of Commercialization Of Urban Water Services In Zambiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Waiting for Miracles: The Commercialization of Urban Water Services in Zambia

Dagdeviren¹

2008

Development and Change

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This article focuses on the commercialization of urban water services in Zambia. It aims to demonstrate the tension between cost recovery and service extension when water sector reforms combine investment cuts with price increases. It is argued that in low-income economies where infrastructure limitations are serious and poverty is widespread, heavy reliance on 'tariff rationalization' with low levels of investment can lead to reduced access to water and render water charges unaffordable. Reforms to public services can prove futile in the absence of upfront resources for investment in the restoration and extension of the existing infrastructure. In many ways, Zambia typifies other low-income economies; this study thus offers useful lessons for them.

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Affordability of Household Water and Sewerage Services in Great Britain*

Cited by 25 publications

References 3 publications

A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States

A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States

Affordability of household water and wastewater charges in Manukau City: a case study

Waiting for Miracles: The Commercialization of Urban Water Services in Zambia

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