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Water accounts in decision-making processes of urban water management: Benefits, limitations and implications in a real implementation

Abstract:

Data management for decision support is a challenging aspect of any decision-making process. Water management is not an exception. The objective of this paper is to present a procedure for compiling water accounts at an urban level to support political decision-making processes with solid foundations. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water (SEEA-Water) was used for this purpose. The case study of Santo Domingo de los Colorados in Ecuador serves to illustrate the benefits and the limitations of the available data and to identify data gaps. The compilation of the SEEA-Water at a local level is a pioneering work. The results reveal the water flows (from the environment to the economy, within the economy, from the economy to the environment), water quality, and the contribution of water resources to different economic activities for the period 2014–2015 at the local level. The information was categorized for the water supply industry, the sewage industry, for the rest of the industries and services, and for the households. On the basis of our empirical example, this paper shows how SEEA-Water underpins informed decision-making on urban water management and serves to improve the quality of water-related data.