The lack of standard definition of intermittent water supply system:

An overview of the used definitions in the literature and by Brazilian regulatory agencies.

Autores

  • Érica Kamimura Nishimura University of São Paulo
  • Woodrow Nelson Lopes Roma University of São Paulo

Palavras-chave:

Discontinuity, Stoppage, Water supply, Regulatory Agencies, Brazil

Resumo

There are over 1 billion consumers around the world supplied by intermittent water service, whose operation is hazardous to the public health, can generate inequity in water supply, can reduce infrastructure lifespan, increases the consumers’ costs and reduces the efficiency of the system. The drawbacks are well-known and despite considerable negative impacts shown before such approach is carrying by several water companies. There is still a considerable gap in the literature that needs to be filled in order to identify a standard definition of intermittent water supply. This paper is focusing on the identification of how the literature and the Brazilian regulatory agencies are dealing with the lack of a standard definition. A procedure used was a systematic review conducted by the software StArt 2.3.4 of intermittency related definitions in the literature and a manual searching process on Brazilian regulatory agencies policies. Our analysis indicates that a missing standard definition of intermittency in water supply results in a wide variety of terms and definitions that are inefficient in the characterization of the problem and are often divergent. The article argues for recognition of the need for a standard definition of intermittent water supply systems to improve the quality of water services.

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Publicado

2020-12-01