Climate related problems such as droughts, heat waves, increased levels of precipitation and storms threaten the functionality of several infrastructural systems. This thesis focus on infrastructure that provides for water and sanitation services because it has been identified as being particular at risk when the climate is changing. The identification and mapping of the vulnerability of a system can improve the prerequisites to choose more appropriate measures to facilitate the situation at hand. In this study a set of GIS based methodologies using indicators (simple and composite) of vulnerability are proposed and assessed. “Physical” vulnerability is used as a measure combining the intrinsic characteristics of a system and the climate related hazard resulting in a measure for physical vulnerability. GIS software is used to manage the spatial data sets and to combine the indicators into indexes of physical vulnerability. The assessed systems and related climate hazards are: - Water and sewage pipe network and an increased risk of pipe breakage due to increased frequencies of landslides and – An increased risk for ground and surface water supplies related to pollution from the point sources sewage infiltration and polluted ground”. The resulting GIS applications are tested on pilot areas located in the Stockholm region and GIS based sensitivity analyses are performed. The availability and accessibility of relevant digital spatial data is also assessed and discussed.

Notorious for its high poverty levels and low socio-economic status, the Navajo Nation’s socio-economic well-being is hindered greatly in part by the lack of an adequate potable water infrastructure which has resulted in health disparities and has attributed to stunted economic growth within the Nation. Large candidate regional water transmission pipelines projects aimed to meet these needs have been identified. With capital costs exceeding their fiscal capability, decision-makers must choose projects that generate the most bang for the buck. To address these challenges, three (3) interconnected planning tools have been developed: (1) a water pipe installation construction cost estimation model (WaterCOSTE) to improve the accuracy of capital cost estimates; (2) a hydraulic optimization model (WaterTRANS) that improves design efficiency for branched water transmission systems; and (3) a decision support system (DSS) that allows candidate water transmission projects to be ranked while considering economic development, health improvement and environmental protection objectives. Estimates derived from WaterCOSTE are used as input into WaterTRANS to find least-cost system designs. The system costs along with other project data are then input into the DSS to determine project rankings. To demonstrate how the DSS can be used and applied, two candidate projects on the Navajo Nation are evaluated. The tools developed will enable decision-makers to improve planning processes and make wiser investment decisions that will lead to expanding the water infrastructure coverage and living conditions on the Navajo Nation.

Expropriation for the purposes of construction of transport, water and energy infrastructure Résumé This thesis deals with expropriation under the regime of Act No. 416/2009 Coll. on accelerating the construction of transport, water and energy infrastructure and electronic communications infrastructure (Act on Acceleration of Construction). The thesis provides an analysis of selected provisions of this Act, evaluates the possibilities of interpretation of questionable provisions and proposes possibilities of de lege ferenda optimisation of the existing legislation. The thesis also responds to the recent amendment to the Act on Acceleration of Construction implemented by Act No. 169/2018 Coll. and analyses the potential impacts of the new legislation on the procedural position of the parties to the proceedings as well as the conformity of the selected provisions of the amendment with the constitutional order. In the first chapter, the reader is acquainted with the notion of expropriation, with the content of this term, the relevant legal regulation and the substantive conditions of expropriation. The following second chapter contains a brief description of the Act on Accelerating Construction and its contextualisation in the terms of historical and political circumstances of its adoption. The third chapter...

Despite years of investment in urban water infrastructure, and the state-a supposedly benign public entity-being the major actor in governing water, many poor residents in global south cities such as Blantyre experience unprecedented water-related problems. The neoliberal narrative unequivocally advocates privatising water; it frames the water problem as symptomatic of the unravelling of non-economic means of distributing this basic necessity of life while revering the free market as a panacea to this long-standing challenge. This thesis draws from the production/urbanisation of nature/space literature to contribute towards framing an alternative and more just political ecological water narrative. Through a radical critique of capitalist urbanisation, it argues that the contemporary urban water condition is the outcome and symptomatic of the unjust historical geographical legacies of modernist/capitalist means of producing water. It problematises the neo-liberal "tragedy of the commons" discourse that attributes these problems to the non-commodity nature of water. Through a case study of Blantyre City, the thesis frames this critique through two claims (1) that there is no such a thing as non-commodified produced water in contemporary Blantyre; (2) that the commodification of water is nothing new, it is a histo-geographical process deeply rooted in logics and contradictions of capitalist production of nature and space. It traces a critical moment in the capitalist remaking of hydro-social relations to colonial modernisation. British colonisation (late 1850s-early 1960s) inserted money and modern techniques at the heart of human-water interactions thereby significantly transforming traditional modes of accessing water. During this period, water began to change from being a common good to an economic resource that could privately be enclosed and harnessed as a means to economic/private ends through modern techniques. Institutions created to mediate this emergent modernist water architecture were dominated by vested private settler interests, depended heavily on external financing and revenue generated from exchanging water through money. British colonisations then sow first seeds in inserting monetary exchange, class and social power as mediators of the human-water interchange thereby entrenching social inequalities in Blantyre's waterscape. The post-colonial political transition in 1964 did little to radically reconfigure these colonial logics and their contradictions; in fact, albeit in qualitatively different ways, these dynamics intensified. The thesis establishes that these historical geographical dynamics continue to reproduce conditions through which underprivileged residents are alienated from water, and this basic need is commodified in contemporary Blantyre. In locating alienation and commodification within the wider historical geographical context of capitalist urbanisation, this thesis aims to critically engage with debates on neo-liberalisation of water. It takes issue with a particular ahistorical manner commodification of water is read and the failure of these debates to engage critically with the historical/colonial genesis of the present urban water condition in global south cities. The thesis hopes to contribute to academic and practical projects concerned with generating alternative understandings and finding just solutions to persistent water problems in the global south.

The start of the 21th century is notable for the apparent lack of safe drinking water and sanitation. Over one billion people in all parts of the world lack access to clean water. Most live in developing countries, such as Africa. Unsafe water and poor sanitation have been primary causal factors in the vast majority of water-borne diseases, especially diarrheal ones. The South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996, Chapter 2, Section 24) states: “Everyone has the right: (a) To an environment that is not harmful to their health and their wellbeing; and (b) To have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation; promote conservation; ecologically sustainable development, and the use of natural resources, while promoting justifiable economic and social development.” Secondly, section 27 states that: “Everyone has the right to have access to: (a) Health-care services, including reproductive health care; (b) Sufficient food and water; and (c) Social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants, appropriate social assistance.” These factors have prompted this research within the Ugu District Municipality on the perceptions of inadequate rural water service delivery. This study reveals information on those areas in the Ugu District Municipality, which do not have access to clean water, and on the health hazards that might lead to death if residents’ lack of access to clean water persists. The Ugu District Municipality, is situated in KwaZulu-Natal Province, and covers a surface area of 5866 km2. There are six local municipalities in this district. These are: Ezinqoleni, Umzumbe, Umziwabantu, Hibiscus Coast, Umdoni and Vulamehlo. The node is 77% rural and 23% urban, and the total population for this area is 704027 (Ugu District Municipality IDP 2nd 2011/2012:19). / M. Development and Management (Water Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

The start of the 21th century is notable for the apparent lack of safe drinking water and sanitation. Over one billion people in all parts of the world lack access to clean water. Most live in developing countries, such as Africa. Unsafe water and poor sanitation have been primary causal factors in the vast majority of water-borne diseases, especially diarrheal ones. The South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996, Chapter 2, Section 24) states: “Everyone has the right: (a) To an environment that is not harmful to their health and their wellbeing; and (b) To have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation; promote conservation; ecologically sustainable development, and the use of natural resources, while promoting justifiable economic and social development.” Secondly, section 27 states that: “Everyone has the right to have access to: (a) Health-care services, including reproductive health care; (b) Sufficient food and water; and (c) Social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants, appropriate social assistance.” These factors have prompted this research within the Ugu District Municipality on the perceptions of inadequate rural water service delivery. This study reveals information on those areas in the Ugu District Municipality, which do not have access to clean water, and on the health hazards that might lead to death if residents’ lack of access to clean water persists. The Ugu District Municipality, is situated in KwaZulu-Natal Province, and covers a surface area of 5866 km2. There are six local municipalities in this district. These are: Ezinqoleni, Umzumbe, Umziwabantu, Hibiscus Coast, Umdoni and Vulamehlo. The node is 77% rural and 23% urban, and the total population for this area is 704027 (Ugu District Municipality IDP 2nd 2011/2012:19). / M. Development and Management (Water Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

The subject of my diploma thesis, "The reasons for differences in prices of water (water and sewage) in South Bohemia on the examples of selected towns Vodňany and Prachatice" is to analyze the pricing of water and sewage, and their development in the period between 2006 to 2014 in the towns Vodňany and Prachatice and find the main reasons for the differences in these prices between these two towns.

PŘIBYLOVÁ, M. (2015): Impacts of the realization of investments in water infrastructure on the development of small municipalities. Master thesis. Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science, Department of Social Geography and Regional Development, Prague, pp. 120. This thesis deals with the disposal of waste water in small municipalities. The theses addresses the impacts that may be caused by investment in the construction of water infrastructure. This investment is very expensive for small municipalities and could lead them into debt. The question to be answered is whether the construction of facilities for wastewater treatment is really important for small municipalities (and their development) and if it should be done in compliance with the EU directive. The task of the study is to assess the current situation of the requirement to build a system of wastewater treatment in small municipalities in Czechia. The study is written from the perspective of a social geographer and in particular in an economic and developing point of view. The theses is also trying to suggest an alternative and cheaper solution. The impacts of these investments could be identified on the basis of the relevant review of the literature and thanks to the responses from the interviews which were conducted both with...

This thesis deals with the water price in relation to the costs of rebuilding of water infrastructure in use. Although the price of water has been very much discussed in the last few years, but mainly in terms of profits. This paper describes the method by which, when using data from property and operating records, it is calculated how much of the gained money should be deferred each year. This amount is for both the whole company and each municipality. As part of this work, I evaluated six water companies and compared the results to each other.

<p>The aging water infrastructure system in the United States has posed considerable hindrance to policy-makers as they seek to provide safe, reliable, and clean drinking water for communities. The deterioration of the physical water infrastructure negatively affects the economics of water utilities and can lead to increases in water rates for consumers, so that utilities can recover the financial losses. However, the dynamics emerging from the interactions among changes in water service reliability, water-rates, consumer behavior (with respect to water consumption and willingness to support water-rate changes in response to changes in water rates, and water utility economics, are still unknown factors in the management of water infrastructure systems. </p> <p>The overarching objective of this dissertation is the creation and demonstration of the dynamics of coupled human and water infrastructure systems under conditions of water main breaks and water-rate increases. First, using water-main break data for a 21-year period from two U.S. cities in the Great Lakes region, the dissertation demonstrates a methodology to estimate the system-wide monthly frequency of water main breaks as a function of a number of explanatory variables. Using a random-parameters negative-binomial approach, the statistical estimations show that pipe diameters, average pipe age, distribution of pipe age, pipe material, time of year, and mean monthly temperature all have a significant impact on monthly water main break frequencies. The results can assist asset managers in quantifying the effect of factors may have on the likelihood of water main breaks, as well as in making cost-effective decisions regarding pipe renewal.</p> <p>Next, by incorporating qualitative survey data and using quantitative econometric methods, consumer behaviors in responses to the water-rate increases, and based on perceptions of water service reliability and quality in a Midwestern U.S. city was evaluated. Using a multivariate binary probit approach, the results provide insights as to how individuals are likely to respond to water-rate increases based on the reliability of current water services and the quality of the supplied water. The outputs of the econometric enable utility managers to better understand the behavior of consumers under different rate conditions and help water utilities in their long-term and short-term financial analyses.</p> <p>Finally, the aforementioned two components are integrated into the interdependency analysis to evaluate the interactive effects of features of the physical water infrastructure (pipeline characteristics, water and associated energy losses, and the revenue loss for water utilities) and the behavior of stakeholders (water utilities and consumers). The developed hybrid system dynamics and agent-based model examines interdependencies between the physical water infrastructure, the water utility, and the water consumers to explore possible emergent behavior patterns of water users during water rate increases over time. The model is demonstrated over the 2001–2010 period on a case study city with a large water distribution system that includes 4,000 miles of pipeline and nine water treatment plants serving a population of 863,000. This model was then verified and validated throughout the development of simulation models and included the following steps: 1) data validity, 2) conceptual model validity, 3) computerized model validity, and 4) operational validity. The results suggest the simulated behavior of the model was reasonable and the output of the simulation model regrading water main break frequency, amount of water and associated energy losses, generated revenue, and payoff periods for implementing proactive maintenance strategies had the accuracy required for the model’s intended purpose. </p> <p>The framework developed in this doctoral study can be applied to different size classifications of cities, as well as different classifications of utility companies (such as electricity and gas) by updating the parameters in the model to reflect the characteristics of the infrastructure system components. The distinctive methodological approach in this doctoral work could capture the emergent behaviors of human-water infrastructure interactions such as the impact of increasing water-rates on residential consumers, the impact of water price elasticity cascading into the water utility revenue, and the impact of residential consumers’ water consumption on water utility revenues. In conclusion, the results of this doctoral research can assist asset managers in understanding their systems, identify pathways for growing revenue through reducing non-revenue water and increasing water-rates, and implementing a proactive pipeline asset management program towards the provision for safe, reliable, and clean drinking water.</p>