How do I determine recurrent expenditure of water or a sanitation service?

First you sum up the total costs to operate, maintain and support the delivery of water services as shown below.

Then you divide the total recurrent expenditure by number of users of the water or sanitation system. If you do not have the actual number of users, you can also use the population for which the water (or sanitation) system was designed.

As most operational and minor maintenance expenditure is reported on an annual basis. Operational and minor maintenance expenditure (OpEx) per year is therefore most easily calculated by taking an average for the years for which data are available as shown below.

Capital Maintenance expenditure is often a lump sum figure can be divided by the age of the water or sanitation system to receive a per year cost, as shown below.

Capital maintenance expenditure is usually reported on an annual basis. If you cannot find capital maintenance expenditures for each year, report the average annual capital maintenance expenditure per water scheme per year for the years that data is available.

I hope this clarifies your question. Alternatively, you can also follow module 3 of the free Costing Sustainable Services online course where this is explained in detail with step-by step- guides, exercises and tools to help you. To register for the Costing Sustainable Services online course, go to https://moodle.ircwash.org/