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Utility Management

Water utilities are complex businesses, and utility leaders must efficiently manage the people, processes, and technologies required to deliver water services. Successfully managing a utility requires a focus on customers and other stakeholders, operations, infrastructure, risk, sustainability, and more. WRF research on best practices provides a framework and guidelines for water utilities to follow.

Topic Overview (PDF)
256 Projects 31 Web Tools 10 Case Studies 62 Webcasts
Customer Relations & Stakeholder Engagement
Finance
Rates & Revenue
Risk Assessment
Project #4678

Forging Powerful and Sustainable Relationships Between Clean Water Agencies and the Community

$192,625
Completed

Project Highlights

This project investigated how clean water agencies (CWAs) can leverage emotional motivators in public engagement programs to create longstanding relationships with the community. Effective messaging and educational materials and/or programs that take advantage of research on emotional connectors is vital...
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Principal Investigator
Sakis
Kotsantonis
Research Manager
Ms. Katie Henderson

Recent Updates

Project #4678
Forging Powerful and Sustainable Relationships Between Clean Water...
Project Update
06/26/2019
Project #4666
Case Study Compilation on Applying Risk Management Principles and Innovative...

The goal of this research is to develop case studies on strategies and tools for applying...

Project Update
07/10/2019
Project #4689
Assessing Water Demand Patterns to Improve Sizing of Water Meters...

Work continued on Task 1 Collect and Analyze Utility Billing Data and Meter Sizing Methods.

Project Update
07/10/2019
Project #4729
Mapping Climate Exposure and Climate Information Needs to Utility Business...

Our approach to this project includes defining the notion of risk within utilities very broadly, followed...

Project Update
06/09/2019
Project #4902
Leveraging Big-Data and Deep Learning for the Condition Assessment of...

During this project period, the automated system was extended to detect fractures (i.e., structural defects that...

Project Update
11/07/2019
Project #4748
Evaluating Risk Management Frameworks and Tools, and Their...

During this project period, the research team has been developing guidance for utility implementation of the...

Project Update
06/09/2019
Project #4941
Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm Application Guidance for...

As part of project 4941, MOEA Application Guidance for Utility Planning, a kick-off meeting and introductory...

Project Update
09/13/2019
Project #4742
Probability Management for Water Finance and ...

Different levels of comfort were observed for addressing uncertainty through the principals of probability management.

Project Update
07/03/2019
Project #4616
Hospital Wastewater Practices and Contaminants of Emerging...

January 1, 2017 – July 31, 2017 - The research team continues working on the literature...

Project Update
06/09/2019
Project #4663
Building Workforce Skills for Intelligent Water ...

October 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018 - Convened a workshop of utilities and vendors on...

Project Update
06/09/2019

News

The Clean Water Calling

Magazine
Peter Grevatt
08/14/2019
Peter Grevatt’s thoughtful insight on where we’ve come from and what steps we need to take to enable the water sector to remain at the forefront of public health and...
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Resources

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Related Projects

Project #4557

Customer Assistance Programs for Multi-Family Residential and Other Hard-to-Reach Customers

Completed
The objective of this project is to provide water utilities with an array of pragmatic options, evaluation criteria, lessons learned, and guidance for developing customer assistance programs that...
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Project #4366

Defining a Resilient Business Model for Water Utilities

Completed
This project helps utilities address the challenges of revenue gaps, which are exacerbated by rising customer expectations, declining water consumption, aging infrastructure, and necessary integration of utility finance...
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Project #4085

Assessing Customer Preferences and Willingness to Pay: A Handbook for Water Utilities

Completed
Develops more robust tools to better characterize customer input to utility investment priorities. Reviews survey approaches for eliciting accurate customer preferences, describes how such tools have been used...
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Project #4965

Development of a Community-Based Lead Risk and Mitigation Model

In Progress
This project will further the science of lead (Pb) exposure risk assessment and mitigation, and translate this into practices that limit Pb exposure for drinking water consumers. A...
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Project #4739

Funding Innovation: Turning an Idea into a Line Item

In Progress
The benefits for innovation within water and wastewater utilities are well documented. Benefits include providing information to make sound decisions, improving operational efficiency, minimizing long term financial risk,...
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Project #4551

Terminology for Improved Communication Regarding CECs

In Progress
This project's primary aim was to develop successful communication tools that ensure consumers can easily find and understand tailored water quality information relating to contaminants of emerging concern...
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Related Topics

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Customer Relations & Stakeholder Engagement

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Risk Assessment

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Rates & Revenue

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Emergency Response & Preparedness

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Affordability

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