Non-Revenue Water Reduction for Water Utility Managers Training Course

Course overview

Non-revenue water (NRW) erodes utility finances, strains already limited production capacity, and weakens service reliability. For water utility managers, the challenge is not simply finding leaks: it is separating real losses, apparent losses and authorised unbilled consumption; identifying which districts justify intervention; and directing operational and capital budgets toward actions with defensible payback. This course equips managers to turn incomplete meter, billing, pressure and network data into a practical NRW reduction programme with accountable targets, priorities and reporting.

Participants work through the IWA water balance and AWWA M36 principles to calculate NRW indicators, assess data confidence, and diagnose the causes of losses. The course covers district metered area (DMA) design, minimum night flow analysis, pressure management, active leakage control, customer meter management, illegal connection assessment, billing-data reconciliation and commercial-loss controls. Managers learn to build intervention business cases using water production costs, avoided demand, repair costs, meter replacement assumptions, and expected volume recovery.

Instructor-led sessions combine worked utility datasets, network scenarios and management decision exercises. Participants use spreadsheet models, QGIS mapping and EPANET concepts to interpret system performance and compare intervention options. Each participant leaves with a structured NRW reduction action plan for a selected utility area, including a baseline water balance, priority-loss diagnosis, DMA or intervention concept, target indicators, implementation responsibilities and a phased investment case.

The course is designed for managers responsible for water distribution, commercial operations, utility planning, asset management or performance improvement. It is particularly valuable where utilities need to justify NRW investments to senior management, regulators, development partners or municipal authorities.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Construct an IWA standard water balance from production, billing, meter and authorised-consumption data
• Calculate NRW, real-loss and apparent-loss indicators using IWA and AWWA M36 performance measures
• Assess data confidence and prioritise meter, billing and field-verification improvements
• Design a district metered area concept using supply boundaries, flow meters, pressure zones and isolation valves
• Interpret minimum night flow data to distinguish background leakage, bursts and legitimate night use
• Develop pressure-management and active-leakage-control strategies for high-loss network zones
• Prepare a commercial-loss investigation plan covering customer metering, illegal use and billing reconciliation
• Produce a costed NRW reduction action plan with targets, responsibilities, sequencing and business-case assumptions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Water Utility Managers — who must set NRW priorities and defend investment decisions to executives and regulators
• Distribution Network Managers — who need to target leakage, pressure and DMA interventions across operational zones
• Commercial and Revenue Managers — who must reduce meter inaccuracies, billing gaps and unauthorised consumption
• NRW Programme Managers — who coordinate technical and commercial loss-reduction work across departments
• Asset Management and Planning Managers — who need to compare renewal, metering and pressure-management investment options
• Utility Performance Improvement Specialists — who prepare evidence-based service and efficiency improvement plans

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in a water utility, municipal water department or service provider and a working understanding of water production, distribution networks, customer metering and billing processes. Familiarity with basic spreadsheet calculations, such as filtering data, using formulas and preparing charts, is assumed. Participants should be able to interpret operational figures including flow, pressure, consumption and billed volume. Prior use of GIS, hydraulic modelling software or formal IWA water-balance methodology is helpful but not required. This is not a beginner course in water-supply operations; it focuses on managerial diagnosis, intervention design and programme control rather than basic pipe-network principles.

Training methodology

The course uses facilitated technical briefings followed by manager-level application exercises. Participants build a water balance from a realistic utility dataset, test data-quality assumptions, map priority zones in QGIS and interpret minimum night flow and pressure scenarios. Small groups compare leakage, metering and commercial-loss interventions using cost, recoverable-volume and implementation-risk criteria. Case discussions examine why NRW programmes fail when technical and commercial teams operate separately. On the final day, participants convert their analysis into a phased NRW reduction action plan for review against operational, financial and governance requirements.

Course outline

Day 1: NRW governance, definitions and baseline diagnosis

• Financial and service-delivery consequences of non-revenue water
• IWA standard water balance structure and terminology
• Real losses, apparent losses and authorised unbilled consumption
• AWWA M36 performance indicators and normalisation principles
• Production, bulk-meter, customer-meter and billing-data reconciliation
• Data-confidence grading and uncertainty assessment
• NRW governance roles, accountabilities and reporting cadence

Workshop: Participants construct an initial IWA water balance and data-confidence assessment from a simulated utility data pack.

Day 2: Network segmentation and real-loss management

• District metered area objectives, boundaries and operational constraints
• DMA inlet-meter specification, logging intervals and communications requirements
• Network isolation valves and boundary validation procedures
• Minimum night flow analysis and legitimate night-use estimation
• Pressure-zone analysis and pressure-dependent leakage concepts
• Active leakage control workflows and leak-detection deployment planning
• Burst-frequency, repair-history and asset-condition prioritisation

Workshop: Participants design a DMA concept and rank three candidate zones using flow, pressure, repair and customer-impact data.

Day 3: Pressure management and hydraulic decision support

• Pressure management objectives, constraints and customer service safeguards
• Pressure reducing valve settings and control modes
• Fixed-outlet, time-modulated and flow-modulated pressure control
• EPANET demand patterns, pressure nodes and scenario interpretation
• Critical-point pressure monitoring and logger placement
• Pressure transients, operational risk and valve-control safeguards
• Estimating leakage reduction and avoided burst benefits

Workshop: Participants compare pressure-management scenarios in an EPANET-based case and prepare a recommended control approach.

Day 4: Apparent-loss reduction and commercial controls

• Customer-meter accuracy degradation and meter testing programmes
• Meter sizing, consumption profiles and replacement prioritisation
• Billing-system exception reports and consumption anomaly analysis
• Illegal connection and unauthorised-consumption investigation methods
• Customer database cleansing and premise-to-meter verification
• Bulk-to-retail consumption reconciliation by service area
• Revenue recovery assumptions and commercial-intervention controls

Workshop: Participants develop a commercial-loss investigation plan from meter-age, billing-exception and consumption-pattern records.

Day 5: NRW programme economics, implementation and control

• Economic level of leakage and marginal-cost decision logic
• Intervention cost modelling for leakage, pressure and metering options
• Recovered-water valuation, production-cost avoidance and revenue assumptions
• Multi-criteria prioritisation of NRW projects
• NRW targets, leading indicators and management dashboards
• Programme sequencing, procurement requirements and team responsibilities
• Board-ready business cases and regulator reporting narratives

Workshop: Participants produce and present a phased NRW reduction action plan with a baseline, intervention priorities, targets, budget assumptions and governance controls.

Tools & standards covered

IWA Water Balance, AWWA M36 Water Audits and Loss Control Programs, QGIS, EPANET

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions