Privatization, Monopoly, and Structured Competition in the Water Industry: Is There a Role for Regulation

This paper provides an overview of privatization andcompetition in the water industry from a public policyvantage point. In particular, it contrasts the contractoperations model with the private ownership withregulation model. Advantages and disadvantages ofeach model are summarized. The monopolistic natureof the water industry and the potential need forstructured competition and economic regulation arediscussed

Funding and Financing to Sustain Public Infrastructure: Why Choices Matter

Investment in public infrastructure, including the provision of essential services through capital-intensive networks, is critical to supporting economic development and, more so, the quality of places and lives. The sustainability of public utilities and other infrastructure systems depends on spending to an optimal compliant service level and raising revenues that fully cover the cost of service. Sustaining infrastructure relies on both funding and financing mechanisms, which should not be confused. This primer provides a framework for understanding the difference between funding and financing and why policy choices for these functions matter. Funding choices affect the distribution of burdens on service consumers; financing choices affect the cost of capital for service providers. These implications tend to receive less attention than behavioral incentives for economic efficiency. The portfolio of alternative funding and financing methods and instruments is described along with how they relate to structural and governance models for service delivery. The report provides key statistics and trends across U.S. infrastructure sectors, with highlights for Michigan. To varying degrees by infrastructure sector, the analysis detects discernable shifts in fiscal federalism and policy emphasis from governmental funding to financing, from federal to state and local funding, from tax-based to fee-based funding, and from public to private capital financing, with implications for impacts and outcomes. Investment gaps and methods for closing them are considered. By improving understanding, this primer aims to promote inclusive and constructive stakeholder engagement around equity in the realization of sustainable public infrastructure

Transforming water: Water efficiency as stimulus and long‐term investment

Water Efficiency programs have an established track record as cost‐effective long‐term public resource investments. Less well understood are the short‐term economic impacts of these rapidly scalable and adaptable programs, and the ability of these programs to quickly deliver economic benefit as well as sustainable solutions. This paper quantitatively examines the short‐term economic growth impacts of water/energy efficiency investments, specifically in terms of job creation, income, GDP, national output, water savings, and other benefits. Our consultant team modeled a wide range of water/energy efficiency program possibilities, across all water‐using sectors and involving indoor, outdoor, and water system efficiencies. This modeling clearly confirms that economic stimulus benefits could be broadly distributed throughout the national economy: 1. The economic output benefits range between $2.5 and$2.8 million per million dollars of direct investment. 2. GDP benefits range between $1.3 and$1.5 million per million dollars of direct investment. 3. Employment potential ranges between 15 and 22 jobs per million dollars of direct investment

Developing a sustainability science approach for water systems

We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines’ different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally co-constituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the “characteristic management challenges” that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions by studying the long historical record of institutional innovations to manage water systems