Conceptualization of a robust performance assessment and evaluation model for consolidating community water systems Jeffrey W. Rogers * ,1 , Garrick E. Louis 1 Department of Systems and Information Engineering, SEAS, University of Virginia, Olsson Hall, 151 Engineers Way, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA Received 1 March 2007; received in revised form 19 December 2007; accepted 14 January 2008 Available online 3 March 2008 Abstract Community water systems (CWS) face significant competing forces for change from decreasing water resource availability, stricter water quality regulations, decreasing federal subsidies, increasing public scrutiny, decreasing financial health, and increasing infrastructure replace- ment costs. These competing forces necessitate increasing consolidation responses among financially stressed CWS. Consolidation responses allow financially stressed CWS to increase levels of service by taking advantage of economy of scale benefits, such as eliminating service duplications across administration and operational functions. Consolidation responses also promote improved financial accountability among consolidating CWS, especially when operating as integral subsystems of a larger regional drinking water supply (RDWS) system. The goal of this paper is to propose a conceptual model for robust performance assessment and evaluation (PAE) among consolidating CWS. The objec- tives of this paper are to conceptualize methods for: (1) consistent performance assessment and (2) uniform summative performance evaluation among consolidating CWS. The expected outcome from implementing robust PAE among consolidating CWS is increased levels of service through transparent benchmarking and improved financial accountability. The proposed robust PAE model provides the basis for constructing decision support system (DSS) tools that estimate efficient solutions for allocating limited financial resources among consolidating CWS. The paper is a significant departure from current CWS PAE approaches in two ways. First, it provides a goal-oriented approach for robust PAE among consolidating CWS. Second, it constructs efficiency-based performance metrics to temporally and spatially monitor the degree of attainment of the RDWS systems’ goal. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Performance assessment; Public drinking water supply; Systems analysis 1. Introduction There are approximately 55,000 independent community water systems 2 (CWS) that collectively produce 40 billion gallons of drinking water per day for 250 million customers (EPA, 2001). Unfortunately, unaccountable losses from process waste and infrastructure leaks reduce the usable drinking water supply by 15% or 6 billion gallons each day (EPA, 2001). The WIN (2000) report concluded that by 2019, the total annual expenditures for the public drinking water supply sector is ex- pected to grow by 40%, from $36 billion to $50 billion per year. During this same period, Rourke and Smith (1997) estimated that approximately 40e45% of CWS will experience financial instability from rising operational and future regulatory com- pliance costs. Rung and Mann (2005) found that the decision-makers of these financially stressed CWS are looking toward regionally based options for long-term funding shortfalls. However, re- gional solutions incorporate greater complexity and uncertainty within the decision-making process (AWWA Webcast, 2007). Localities typically view regional solutions with skepticism * Corresponding author. Present address: 102 Saddle Rock Road, Lynchburg, VA 24503, USA. Tel.: þ1 434 384 7845; fax: þ1 434 386 5696. E-mail addresses: jwr9f@virginia.edu, jwrengineering@verizon.net (J.W. Rogers), gel7f@virginia.edu (G.E. Louis). 1 Tel.: þ1 434 982 2742; fax: þ1 434 982 2972. 2 USEPA defines a community water system as a public drinking water sup- ply service that serves at least 25 people and/or 15 connections on a year-round basis. 0301-4797/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2008.01.010 Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 786e797 www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman