The Value of Water Supply Reliability in the CII Sector

Water is an essential and highly valuable input to most production processes. CII establishments of all types depend on reliable water supplies—of suitable quantity and quality—to produce their goods and services. Limitations or uncertainties about the reliability of water service will significantly impede the ability of a CII business to effectively compete and remain economically viable. Communities in turn rely on CII enterprises to provide jobs, tax revenues, and other essential benefits to their regional economies. There is thus a crucial symbiotic relationship between a community’s ability to provide a reliable water supply to its CII customers, and the local CII sector’s ability to compete in regional and global markets and thereby provide economic and social benefits to the community. The project develops and applies a range of approaches to describe the levels and patterns of water use in key CII subsectors, and to examine the implications of water supply reliability for key CII subcategories.

Originally funded as WERF project Reuse-09-04.