Regulation of urban water services in Portugal

Abstract

In Portugal, the public services of water supply (WS) and urban wastewater management (UWW) are regulated and supervised by ERSAR, an independent administrative authority. The improvement, evaluation, and benchmarking of water utilities (WUs) rely on a quality-of-service assessment system, initiated in 2004 and now in its 4th generation. Two analogous systems are in place: one for WS and another for UWW. Both are objective-driven assessment frameworks, structured around criteria and based on key performance indicators (KPIs) to quantitatively measure service effectiveness and efficiency.