University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Doi
Abstract
Goals, targets, and service level benchmarks play important roles in planning and policy for urban infrastructure. This dissertation includes three studies that examine how such targets are sensitive to underlying conceptual and data problems, and themselves can lead to unanticipated outcomes depending on the institutional context. In my first study, I implement a method to disaggregate geographically coarse population estimates from the Census of India into a fine population gridded dataset and apply a community detection algorithm and several population density thresholds to identify urbanized areas in India. I find that the Census of India likely undercounted its urban population and the growth rate of that population between 2000 and 2010. My second study examines an experiment by the water utility serving Amravati, a city in Maharashtra, India, to upgrade its service levels from intermittent water supply to continuous water supply in part of its service area. I find that this upgrade resulted in increased water demand for certain subgroups. In my third study, I investigate the spatial distribution of publicly owned, investor-owned, cooperative, and privately owned water systems in California, and the association between ownership type and water rate affordability. I find that publicly owned, and to a lesser extent, investor-owned utilities dominate mid-sized and large cities, but that other systems are prominent in rural and peripheral areas. I find that investor-owned systems do tend to charge higher, more unaffordable water rates, although they cut off fewer of their customers for nonpayment than their publicly owned counterparts when controlling for the affordability of their rates.Doctor of Philosoph
