"This study reviews the experience of Maynilad, the Philippines’ water service company, in the application of hydraulic modelling for pressure management and optimisation. Reliability of water supply and pressure is critical in customer service. However, this reliability can be significantly influenced by water supply inefficiencies such as leaks, pipe bursts, fluctuating pressure, and insufficient supply.

The solution to reducing and sustaining leakage rate in a defined economic level is rather different in utilities around the world. However, the need for the best possible reduction in leakage up to a level compatible with a given OPEX, taking into account the CAPEX applied to apply to any particular problem over short, medium and long term time horizons can be very complex.

Water utilities in North America have recently experienced significant downturns in water consumption arising, in large measure, from the economic slowdown and the effectiveness of water efficiency strategies implemented over the last few of years. The information presented in this study of water production, use and loss trends in Ontario Canada, is likely characteristic of many other countries that have experienced a similar recent economic downturn affecting water use.

The choice of the most appropriate indicator to use to compare leakage performance between companies or zones has been the focus of much research and study. The IWA Water Loss Task Force made recommendations (Lambert, 2000) about standardising the terminology and the water balance and then went on to show the short comings of some performance measures. It introduced the concept of the unavoidable level of losses and the Infrastructure Leakage Index.

"The American Water Works Association‟s (AWWA) Water Loss Control Committee (WLCC)assembled in 2011 an initial dataset of Water Audit data from 26 water systems from the United States and Canada. This effort represents the initial phase of a project that ultimately aims to establish North American water industry benchmarks for water loss control, while promoting the use of standardized water loss accounting practices.. In early 2011, the committee embarked upon an effort to collect and validate an initial pool of water utility water audit data.