Reducing Non-Revenue Water with District Metering
Omar Nasser
Regional Manager, Gulf
Non-revenue water across the region commonly runs between 25% and 40% of production. Reported as a single network figure it is useless operationally — it tells you there is a problem but not where.
Segment the network
A district metered area (DMA) isolates 500 to 3,000 connections behind a single metered inlet. Night-flow analysis on that inlet gives a direct estimate of leakage in the district, because legitimate consumption between 02:00 and 04:00 is small and predictable.
Prioritise by yield, not by size
The instinct is to attack the largest DMA first. The better ordering is by excess night flow per connection, which points at the districts where a crew-day recovers the most water.
Sustaining the gain
Leakage returns. Without permanent DMA monitoring, recovered losses typically re-accumulate within 18 to 24 months, which is why the metering has to stay in place rather than being treated as a one-off survey.