Title: Will water accounting standards provide useful information to stakeholders?

Authors: Stella Sofocleous

Addresses: School of Accounting, Victoria University, P.O. Box 14428, MCMC, Melbourne, Victoria 8001, Australia

Abstract: In order to assist solving the water needs of the growing population around the world, water and accounting experts have been working to draft Statements of Water Accounting Concepts in Australia. The financial accounting framework and the financial accounting standards are used as a base to draft the Water Accounting Framework. This paper attempts to list and evaluate some of the major differences between them from the point of view of the business structure of water organisations which are divided for purpose of this research into government and non-government water organisations. An example of a major difference between the two frameworks is that the financial accounting framework has no statement of accounting concept that has dealt with measurement issues. That will be one of the problems in water accounting where attention should be paid to the problem of measuring and reporting on water activities and not only on monetary measures.

Keywords: water needs; accounting standards; financial accounting; accounting frameworks; stakeholders; population growth; accounting concepts; Australia; government organisations; non-government organisations; NGOs; non-governmental organisations; measurement issues; monetary measures; water supply; water industry; environment; interdisciplinary approaches.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2010.038084

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2010 Vol.11 No.4, pp.293 - 302

Published online: 18 Jan 2011 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article