Regional Summaries of Infrastructure Leakage Index
Real Losses Management Comparisons using International Best Practice
The IWA 1st Water Loss Task Force created the UARL and ILI in 1999 as the only measure specifically designed for national and international performance comparisons of technical Real Losses management. This site will summarise hundreds of ILIs that have been calculated by and for Utilities in different regions, countries and states or provinces.
The ILIs Overview by Country webpage provides a summary of the ILI data currently within this Global ILIs section, and will be updated from time to time as new or updated ILI data sets are added.
The paper on the Low ILIs and Small Systems webpage explains why the standard UARL equation, used in the calculation of ILI, may require customising in some circumstances by the addition of a correction factor.
Traditional performance indicators (per km mains, per service connection, per property) are often misleading for meaningful comparisons; %s always are.
In contrast, UARL and ILI make due allowance for key system specific parameters – system size, connection density, meter location, average pressure – to create a ‘level playing field.’
Utility performance in NRW and Real Losses management is an extremely sensitive issue in most countries. Some Utilities accept the challenges of openness, others prefer to participate in comparison exercises only if their anonymity can be protected; often so they can identify such weaknesses as may exist, and obtain guidance on how to improve their performance.
One of the simplest uses for a calculated ILI (which is a dimensionless number) is to broadly interpret Real Losses management performance at current operating pressure. An International Leakage Performance Category (LPC) classification system,shown in the Concepts webpage UARL and ILI, is used to identify general recommended strategies for improvement. The LPC classification has 8 categories (A1 to D2); LPC boundary values of ILI for High Income Countries (HICs) are twice as large as boundary values for Low and Middle Income Countries, so it is necessary to identify if a particular country is an HIC or a LAMIC. A list of High, and Low/Middle income countries (with High/Middle break point around $US12k to $US13k median per capita income) can be found at http://chartsbin.com/view/2438
With free access to this ILI database, it is hoped that more Utilities and countries will be encouraged to calculate and publish ILIs (attributed or anonymous) for their systems. Quality control and data sources will be identified. WLR&A reserve the right not to include ILI data, particularly where they may be unsure of the reliability of the calculations.
Most of the ILI data sets for Countries, regions or groups within countries listed above are only partial ILI data sets. A simple initial overview approach to using the sample data to assess overall leakage management efficiency of each country/region/group –whether it has a complete or partial ILI data set – is described in ILI Overviews by Country webpages in this Section of the LeaksSuite Library.
Future Updates: Countries which already have sufficient good quality ILI data to justify a separate Webpage within Global ILIs are invited to contact us