Assessing Water Supply Coverage and Water Losses from Distribution System for Planning Water Loss Reduction Strategies (Case Study on Axum town, North Ethiopia)

Abstract

Problems in provision of adequate water supply to the rapidly growing urban population in developing countries are increasing dramatically. Moreover, reduction of non-revenue water remains one of the major challenges facing many water utilities in Ethiopia in general and Axum water supply system in particular. This study mainly focuses on the status of water supply coverage and water losses in Axum town using statistical analysis and Water audit software. A statistical analysis was applied to analyse the current water supply coverage of the entire town and to develop distribution coverage map using Arc GIS software. Water meter test was conducted for samples from each size of meters installed in the distribution system of the town in order to quantify the water loss through meters of under registration. Water audit software was also used to analyze water loss components and the efficiency of the system was evaluated using different performance indicators. Discussions were made with Local experts’ to support the quantitative analysis. From the result of the analysis, it was observed that the average daily per capita water consumption of the town is 12.8 litre/person/day. Thus, nearly 75% of the entire town population is getting water less than the basic service level and the average in-house or yard connection of the town is 27%. Besides, the total water loss in Axum water supply system is high enough up to 39.1% of the system input volume and about 8.84% of the total system loss is mainly due to meter under registration. In general, the low water supply coverage of the town was highly influenced by the availability of water. However, the main reasons for the high loss of water in Axum water supply system are the present way of water network management with ad-hoc maintenance and insufficient financial resources of the utility. Thus, it is necessary to identify the losses encountered in the water supply system so as to take remedial actions in reducing the water loss more significantly.

Key words: water supply coverage, non-revenue water, water supply system, water audit software, performance indicator, meter under registration.