A data management system for demand forecasting

In the United Kingdom the water industry has now largely abandoned the extrapolation of trends in measured water consumption as a means of forecasting future water demands in favour of the component method. This method involves the division of the total demand into three parts: unmeasured, measured and unaccounted‐for water. The modelling of these three components imposes a major data requirement, particularly when forecasts are to be produced on a routine basis for a large number of small areal units. Both data handling and modelling have been greatly facilitated by the creation of a data management system based upon two readily available commercial software packages mounted on a microcomputer.