Departamento de Ingeniería Hidráulica y Ambiental, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile; Escuela de Arquitectura e Instituto de Estudios Urbanos, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, El Comendador 1916, Santiago, Chile; Centro de Desarrollo Urbano Sustentable CONICYT/FONDAP/15110020, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile.
Department of Mathematics for Economics, University of Valencia, Avd. Tarongers S/N, Valencia, Spain.
Sci Total Environ. 2016 Oct 15;568:180-188. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.06.020. Epub 2016 Jun 10.
Water scarcity is one of the main problems faced by many regions in the XXIst century. In this context, the need to reduce leakages from water distribution systems has gained almost universal acceptance. The concept of sustainable economic level of leakage (SELL) has been proposed to internalize the environmental and resource costs within economic level of leakage calculations. However, because these costs are not set by the market, they have not often been calculated. In this paper, the directional-distance function was used to estimate the shadow price of leakages as a proxy of their environmental and resource costs. This is a pioneering approach to the economic valuation of leakage externalities. An empirical application was carried out for the main Chilean water companies. The estimated results indicated that for 2014, the average shadow price of leakages was approximately 32% of the price of the water delivered. Moreover, as a sensitivity analysis, the shadow prices of the leakages were calculated from the perspective of the water companies' managers and the regulator. The methodology and findings of this study are essential for supporting the decision process of reducing leakage, contributing to the improvement of economic, social and environmental efficiency and sustainability of urban water supplies.
水资源短缺是 21 世纪许多地区面临的主要问题之一。在这种情况下，减少供水管网漏损的需求已得到广泛认可。可持续经济漏损水平（SELL）的概念已经提出，将环境和资源成本纳入经济漏损水平计算中。然而，由于这些成本不是由市场设定的，因此它们通常未被计算。在本文中，使用方向距离函数来估计漏损的影子价格，以作为其环境和资源成本的替代指标。这是对漏损外部性进行经济估值的一种开创性方法。对智利主要的水务公司进行了实证应用。估计结果表明，2014 年，平均漏损的影子价格约为所供水量价格的 32%。此外，作为敏感性分析，从水务公司经理和监管机构的角度计算了漏损的影子价格。本研究的方法和结果对于支持减少漏损的决策过程至关重要，有助于提高城市供水的经济、社会和环境效率和可持续性。
