Accounting for Residential Nonpayment Risk for Water Utility Financial Sustainability

Residential “nonpayment risk” for water utilities—the risk of revenue loss from residential customers not paying water bills—is a financial threat for water service providers that remains poorly understood. The authors developed a new heuristic model to categorize and evaluate water utility pricing (rate setting) strategies responsive to the effects of nonpayment (i.e., delinquency) on water utility revenues. The model is the first attempt, to our knowledge, to theorize the impact of residential nonpayment on utility revenues.

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