Benchmarking the Water Losses in Portugal

Water losses are one of the main challenges that the water sector faces in most of the countries. High water losses have, above all, two notorious meanings. From one point of view, they imply an environmental loss and, from another point of view, they represent a relevant economic value in the annual profit and loss architecture of the water services. In Portugal this problem is particularly serious as, on one hand, the water losses value is significant, more than 35 % in the whole country on average and, on the other hand, the production cost is extremely high, with the majority of the water services buying bulk water to outside companies as a result of the reform the sector has been suffering in the last years with the separation between the wholesale water supply and the retail water supply. The bulk water service is usually provided by public companies which belong to the State while the municipalities are responsible for the water distribution. Besides, a significant part of the country, at least in the summer, presents lack of water resources. The water losses issue is, therefore, at the top of the water services, the Government, the NGOs and the economic agents’ priorities and it is starting to arise a generalised interest among the population.