Title: Regulatory impacts on sustainable drinking water supply: a comparative study on Dutch water companies

Authors: Jasper M. Dalhuisen, Peter Nijkamp

Addresses: Ministry of Agriculture, Willem Witsenplein 6, The Hague, The Netherlands. ' Department of Spatial Economics, Free University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: Regulatory changes have exerted deep impacts on public service provision. This paper aims to disentangle recent differences in the external production circumstances of Dutch regional water companies in order to identify the crucial regulatory factors influencing the supply of water to various users in the distribution area of the water company concerned. The analysis is carried out for various types of water companies by means of an analysis of variance (ANOVA), while the consequences for individual water companies are examined by using a rough set analysis (a recent artificial intelligence method). The increase of investments in the network, the institutional-legal form of the company and the number of connections per km of network appear to be the most important characteristics of the differences in the actual efficiency of water supply per connection.

Keywords: water supply; water demand; ANOVA; rough set analysis; production circumstances; drinking water; Dutch water companies; The Netherlands; regulation; artificial intelligence; efficiency; environmental technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2006.011898

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, 2006 Vol.6 No.6, pp.564 - 582

Published online: 30 Dec 2006 *

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