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The study seeks to add to the understanding of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting practices.

Semi-structured interviews and municipal water utility publications are analysed to identify factors which have influenced the diffusion and subsequent decline of environmental reporting practices within the Finnish water sector.

The findings suggest a dynamic view of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting, showing that a variety of forces operated jointly over time. The initial swift diffusion may be mostly explained from the perspectives of fad and fashion, whereas the subsequent gradual decline of such reporting appears to have been driven mainly by internal organizational factors and a lack of outside pressure.

The paper relies on a qualitative dataset, implying that extensive care is needed when seeking to generalise or apply the findings to different contexts or organizational fields.

The findings presented here should prove interesting for public sector managers, who are considering how, if at all, their organization should engage in social and environmental reporting.

The paper provides new insights into public sector sustainability reporting and presents reasons for its decline. In addition, the analysis illustrates the applicability of Abrahamson's typology of innovation diffusion to the study of social and environmental reporting practices.

The purpose of this paper is to present a yardstick efficiency comparison of 269 Indonesian municipal water utilities (MWUs) and measures the impact of exogenous environmental variables on efficiency scores.

Two-stage Stackelberg leader-follower data envelopment analysis (DEA) and artificial neural networks (ANN) were employed.

Given that serviceability was treated as the leader and profitability as the follower, the first and second stage DEA scores were 55 and 32 percent (0 percent = totally inefficient, 100 percent = perfectly efficient), respectively. This indicates sizeable opportunities for improvement, with 39 percent of the total sample facing serious problems in both first- and second-stage efficiencies. When profitability instead leads serviceability, this results in more decreased efficiency. The size of the population served was the most important exogenous environmental variable affecting DEA efficiency scores in both the first and second stages.

The present study was limited by the overly restrictive assumption that all MWUs operate at a constant-return-to-scale.

These research findings will enable better management of the MWUs in question, allowing their current level of performance to be objectively compared with that of their peers, both in terms of scale and area of operation. These findings will also help the government prioritize assistance measures for MWUs that are suffering from acute performance gaps, and to devise a strategic national plan to revitalize Indonesia’s water sector.

This paper enriches the body of knowledge by filling in knowledge gaps relating to benchmarking in Indonesia’s water industry, as well as in the application of ensemble two-stage DEA and ANN, which are still rare in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to look at how the topic of water governance in the USA reflects the discussion just prior to the contemporary wave of privatisation that now characterises a large section of water in the country.

In addition to select classic articles, the body of literature chosen for review includes studies published between 2000 and 2019, using The PRISMA statement. Studies chosen were published in recognised journals in core disciplines relating to governance, water management, policy and regulation.

Private equity firms and water-focused investment funds are significant investors in private companies that operate municipal water works in the USA. This has caused much of the public water infrastructure in the country (and globally) to become privatised and held by international investors as securitised assets.

There is a need for further primary research to more comprehensively capture what actions the US government are taking to carve out a large policy-making space for themselves in a country that there is not an extensive body of literature on takeover decisions in water governance.

The confluence of privatisation in water governance within the US government is an area of growing concern to those interested in how water governance systems and protocols shape broader justice and equality developments across the country.

The purpose of this paper is to re‐introduce the APC model (developed by the American Productivity Center) through a spreadsheet application of the model in a real‐world setting, with a case study of Harlingen Waterworks, Texas, USA.

This paper introduces a performance measurement system using a multi‐factor productivity measurement model in a real‐world setting. The model uses operational‐level accounting data such as quantities and prices of inputs and outputs of a revenue‐generating organization. Such operational data is rarely published or shared by for‐profit organizations. Thus, the study focused on a government‐run enterprise that cannot claim confidentiality. Since water utilities are experiencing financial pressures, this application is very timely. The spreadsheet‐based implementation, using multi‐period data, generates performance trend charts of productivity, price recovery and profitability contributions that give a better perspective to managers in identifying the problem areas.

As shown in this paper, the spreadsheet‐based application using the APC model has provided a better understanding of problem areas at Harlingen Waterworks.

The contribution of this paper is the actual application of the APC model using multi‐period data, and the outcomes of the application in a real‐world setting. This application is useful to any public or private organization generating revenues. The APC model, in this instance, is intended to provide readily interpretable performance feedback for financial managers.

In public-private partnership (PPP) contracts of water utilities, of particular concern is lack of market competition. This paper focuses on the size of contracts. If governments design a large-scale transaction, economies of scale in service operation can be expected, but competition in auctions may be compromised. For small contracts many firms will apply, but at the cost of scale diseconomies in operation. The estimated cost function of PPP water utilities indicates that economies of scale exist but diminish quickly as production increases. There is no rationale for more than 300 million cubic meters of water service concessions under a single package, taking a risk of little competition. Conversely, less than 50 million cubic meters of concessions are too small; the bundling approach is required.

For a good part of the U.S. system of federalism municipal incorporation has been the formal structure for local communities. Over the last 60 years there has been a shift in this structure to special district government. The Woodlands, Texas presents an interesting case study on the incremental development of a former New Town community, the change in formal government organization and the potential for a different model of local governance structure in the 21st Century. The authors explore the four stages of development for The Woodlands over the past 40 years and assess this development through several model theories including institutional, urban regime, and urban governance. Contrary to some current literature on governance, The Woodlands appears to have transitioned from decentralization to more centralization while at the same time avoiding full incorporation as a municipality. It may be indicative of the new governance.

Provides a summary of recycled water use in California, illustrating the evolution of its application from individual projects for nearby users, to city‐wide and district programs. Presents three detailed case studies of recent water recycling projects: the West Basin Water Recycling project in Los Angeles County, the South Bay Water Recycling project in Santa Clara County, and several projects in Marin County. Barriers to recycled water projects include the cost, institutional barriers that separate water supply and wastewater functions, slow regulatory response in permitting, recognizing new technology and expended uses, and educating stakeholders. From the case studies, common elements to successful implementation demonstrate the importance of working with numerous stakeholders throughout the process and addressing their concerns, creating new institutional partnerships, educating stakeholders to bring actors together, market services, and engender support, acquiring financial assistance and providing incentives and, finally, relying on large volume users to support a more cost‐effective design.

This paper aims to identify the priorities on water sector planning. The priorities are identified by comparing the climate change impact on water consumption and the impact of using domestic water illegally to irrigate the urban agricultural holdings in suburban areas.

Metered water consumption in summer and winter in both urban and suburban areas was studied in Rafah city. A backward chronological linear model of climate change (precipitation and temperature) influence on water consumption was developed using software STATISTICA 10. The developed statistical relation was used to predict the impact of various climate change scenarios for domestic water consumption. Hence, four climate change scenarios were hypothesized – an increase in temperature by 1 and 20°C and a reduction in the rainfall by 10 and 20 per cent, respectively.

The most influential climate change scenario was the increase of temperature by 20°C, which caused an increase of 1.4 per cent on the average domestic water consumption compared to the current value. The hypothesized reduction of 20 per cent in precipitation caused a negligible increase in water consumption by 0.1 per cent from the current value. Urban agriculture and current practice of using municipal water to irrigate cultivated urban holdings have a significant negative influence on domestic water consumption. The aforementioned practice led to a high percentage of unaccounted for water (UFW) of 33, 38 and 45 per cent for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively.

The concerned decision-makers should consider the right track in prioritizing dilemmas for planning water sector in suburban areas.

This research could be considered the first of its kind because impacts of urban agriculture and climate change on domestic water consumption have never been previously considered in the Gaza Strip.

The interaction of urban cores and their rural hinterlands is considered from an ecological–economic perspective. The concept of ‘urban metabolism’ motivates discussion of urban dependence on geographic regions outside their borders for both sources of inputs and as waste sinks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 1989 Surface-Water Treatment Rule forces cities to consider the ecosystem services preserved by appropriate land-use management inside suburban and rural watersheds used for urban water supplies. A case study of New York City and its water supply from the Catskill–Delaware watershed system is used to explore these themes. Compensation from the city to watershed communities may be an effective way to motivate protection of those ecosystem functions. Both direct payments and investment in economic development projects consistent with water quality goals are reviewed as policy instruments.