ABSTRACT
Performance assessment of Small and Medium-Sized Water Systems (SMWSs) is important for operational, tactical, and strategic decision-making. In this study, a performance assessment method has been developed and applied to five drinking water, three wastewater, and two stormwater utilities using 39, 30 and 27 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in a semi-arid region. The KPIs were aggregated to determine a performance index using a Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution method. K-nearest neighbors and penalty methods were used to estimate missing KPIs data. The results indicated that only two drinking water utilities and one wastewater utility had been rated as ‘high’ performance. None of the utilities in stormwater performance was rated as ‘high’. The developed method can assist decision-makers in evaluating SMWSs performance holistically, build operational management strategies, and identify necessary interventions in overcoming water systems challenges across each urban water system component.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude towards all the municipal representatives (participants) of the Okanagan valley, British Columbia, Canada for sharing their water systems data. In addition, the authors would also like to thank the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada for the financial assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2023.2229298