Non-Revenue Water (NRW) KPI

Non-Revenue Water (NRW) is a critical KPI for water utilities, reflecting the volume of water produced but not billed to customers.

High NRW levels can indicate inefficiencies in operations, impacting financial health and service delivery.

Reducing NRW can lead to significant cost savings and improved operational efficiency, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction.

Effective management reporting and strategic alignment around NRW can drive better business outcomes.

Organizations that prioritize NRW reduction often see improved forecasting accuracy and better ROI metrics.

How Non-Revenue Water (NRW) Connects to Your Strategy

Non-Revenue Water (NRW) belongs to two KPI groups, and in both it carries the same authoritative rank of sixth. In the Water Management group it sits among Total Water Usage, Fresh Water Withdrawal, Wastewater Quality, Water Quality Monitoring Frequency, and Water Compliance Incidents, with Water Treatment Costs and Water Supply Resilience close behind. In the Water & Wastewater Utilities group it follows Water Quality Compliance Rate, Water Supply Reliability Index, Regulatory Compliance Score, Wastewater Treatment Compliance Rate, and Water Loss Percentage, with Water Quality Incident Frequency and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) rounding out the top members. The steady sixth placement across both groups tells customers something specific. NRW is not the first thing a water team watches, but it is not far down the list either. Quality, reliability, and compliance outrank it in both groups, which reflects a plain ordering of priorities. Safe water that reaches customers comes first, and the efficiency of getting it there comes right after.

On the balanced scorecard this is an internal metric, and it reads as a lagging one. NRW reports what already leaked, was mismetered, or went unbilled over a past period. The canonical formula frames it as total water produced minus total billed water, divided by total water produced, so it is a loss outcome expressed against what the system put into supply. Customers should treat it as a result to explain rather than a lever to pull directly. The levers are the maintenance, metering, and enforcement work that show up in other members of these groups.

One tension is worth naming with a real neighbor. In the Water & Wastewater Utilities group, Water Loss Percentage ranks fifth, one place above NRW, and the two sit very close in meaning. Both describe water that enters the system and does not convert to billed volume. The distinction that customers must hold is that Water Loss Percentage tends to speak to physical leakage, while NRW also absorbs apparent losses such as meter under-registration, unauthorized consumption, and unbilled authorized use. Reporting both without settling that boundary invites double counting and confused targets. Reconcile the two definitions before either goes on a dashboard.

A second tension is about money, not measurement. Cutting NRW means funding leak detection, pipe repair, and better metering, and that capital competes with other members of these same groups. Spending to lift Water Supply Resilience in the Water Management group, or to raise the Water Supply Reliability Index in the Water & Wastewater Utilities group, draws from the same budget. A team can push NRW down or harden supply against shocks, and it usually cannot do both at full pace in one cycle. Ranking NRW sixth in both groups is a signal that resilience and compliance often win that contest.

Measuring Non-Revenue Water (NRW) in Practice

Measuring Non-Revenue Water (NRW) starts with two data sources that live in different systems, and getting them to agree is most of the work. The numerator side needs total water produced, which comes from bulk production and district meters at treatment outlets and network entry points. The billed side needs total billed authorized consumption, which comes from the customer billing system. Those systems are maintained by different teams on different cycles, so the first task is aligning their periods and boundaries. A production reading and a billing extract that cover slightly different windows will produce a loss figure that reflects the mismatch rather than the network.

Several definitional forks should be settled before any number is published. First, choose the denominator: NRW as a percentage of system input volume, as a volume per service connection per day, or as a volume per kilometre of main. Each answers a different question, and mixing them across reports makes trends meaningless. Second, split apparent losses from real losses. Apparent losses come from meter under-registration, billing gaps, and theft, and they are recovered through metering and enforcement. Real losses are physical leaks and overflows, recovered through detection and repair. Third, decide how commercial NRW and physical NRW are reported, because lumping them hides which remedy applies. In the Water & Wastewater Utilities group, Water Loss Percentage ranks one place above NRW, so the boundary between physical leakage and the broader NRW figure has to be drawn explicitly to keep the two metrics from overlapping.

Segmentation makes the number useful rather than just true. Break NRW down by district-metered area so losses can be located instead of averaged away. Segment by pressure zone, since higher pressure drives higher leakage and skews any blended figure. Segment by network age, because older mains behave differently from recent installations. A single system-wide percentage can stay flat while one aging zone quietly worsens, and only the breakdown will show it.

The instrumentation pitfalls are concrete. Bulk-meter accuracy sets a floor on the whole calculation, and a production meter that drifts pushes the loss figure in one direction across every downstream report. Unmetered legitimate use, such as firefighting draw, mains flushing, and standpipe supply, looks like loss unless it is accounted for. Intermittent supply distorts customer meters, which tend to under-register at low or fluctuating flow, inflating apparent losses that are really measurement artifacts. Each of these has to be checked before a movement in NRW is read as a real change in the network rather than a change in how the network was measured.

Common Pitfalls

Many utilities overlook NRW as a lagging metric, failing to recognize its impact on financial ratios and operational efficiency.

• Neglecting regular audits of water distribution systems can lead to undetected leaks. Aging infrastructure often harbors hidden issues that escalate costs and waste resources over time.
• Inadequate staff training on billing practices can result in errors. Miscommunication between departments may cause discrepancies, leading to lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction.
• Ignoring customer feedback on service quality can mask underlying problems. Without structured feedback loops, utilities may miss opportunities for improvement.
• Overcomplicating billing structures can confuse customers and hinder payments. Clear, straightforward invoices help ensure timely revenue collection.

Improvement Levers

Reducing NRW requires a multifaceted approach that targets both operational processes and customer engagement.

• Implement advanced metering infrastructure to enhance data accuracy. Smart meters provide real-time insights, enabling quicker detection of leaks and billing discrepancies.
• Conduct regular leak detection surveys to identify and repair issues proactively. Utilizing technology like acoustic sensors can significantly reduce water loss.
• Enhance staff training on customer service and billing accuracy. Empowering employees with the right tools and knowledge fosters accountability and improves customer interactions.
• Engage customers through awareness campaigns about water conservation. Educating the public can lead to reduced consumption and improved payment behaviors.

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Non-Revenue Water (NRW) Benchmarks

We have 7 relevant benchmarks in our benchmarks database.

Browse the Top Benchmarked KPIs in Water Management

Reading the Benchmarks for Non-Revenue Water (NRW)

Seven benchmark sources are attached to Non-Revenue Water (NRW), and they are worth studying as much for how they disagree as for what they cover. The sources are the International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation (IBNET), The World Bank, which appears twice as two distinct entries, an academic study by A. Maziotis and colleagues, a study published in Water Practice & Technology, an IWA-related publication, a study by F. Mubvaruri, and an academic utility-ranking study whose stored title is truncated. We treat that last one as a utility-ranking study and do not guess at the missing end of its title.

The first reason these figures do not line up is definition and denominator. NRW can be reported as a percentage of system input volume, as a volume per service connection per day, or as a volume per kilometre of main. Those are three different quantities that happen to share a name. A figure that looks high under one convention can look ordinary under another, and none converts cleanly into the others without knowing the network. Some sources also lean on the IWA water-balance method, which itemizes real losses, apparent losses, and unbilled authorized use, while others use simpler loss accounting that nets billed against produced. The two approaches draw the boundary of a loss in different places.

The second reason is the population behind each figure. These sources span developing countries, North America, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Chile, and global collections of water utilities and water supply systems. Utility size varies as well, from single-country studies to networks covering large numbers of utilities across many countries. A benchmark drawn from developing systems with intermittent supply is not interchangeable with one drawn from a mature developed network, because the loss mechanisms differ.

The third reason is time. The attached sources carry dates ranging from the mid two-thousands through recent years. Water losses shift as infrastructure ages, as metering is upgraded, and as pressure management is introduced, so a figure from one period is not a safe stand-in for another.

This is why we publish only the source names and the axes along which they diverge, and not a number, range, or threshold from any of them. Two figures that both call themselves NRW can rest on different denominators, different loss-accounting methods, different countries, and different years. Read out of context, they mislead. The value of source-attributed data is that each figure arrives with its definition, its population, and its date attached, so a customer can judge whether a comparison is fair before making it. That context is the product, and it is what these seven citations are worth paying for.

OKRs That Use Non-Revenue Water (NRW)

Non-Revenue Water (NRW) works best in objectives and key results as a key result under an efficiency or loss-reduction objective, not as an objective in its own right. It is a lagging outcome, so it belongs on the results line where it can register whether the underlying work moved the number.

In the Water Management group, one objective names this directly. Optimize water resource utilization to reduce operational costs and losses already lists NRW as a key result alongside leakage reduction and treatment cost, which fits the metric cleanly. A directional framing keeps the pairing honest. Set a key result to reduce NRW over the cycle, and pair it with a key result to raise metering coverage or accelerate leak repair, so the loss figure has a mechanism behind it. Because NRW absorbs both physical and apparent losses, one repair-focused key result and one metering-focused key result under this objective cover both halves of the loss without double counting.

In the Water & Wastewater Utilities group, a second objective fits just as well. Improve infrastructure efficiency to minimize water loss and operational waste pairs NRW with Water Loss Percentage as separate key results, which matches the near-overlap between those two members. The guidance here is directional and specific: reduce NRW, and reduce Water Loss Percentage on its own line, but define each so the physical leakage captured by one is not counted again in the other. The group best practices reinforce this by advising customers to address Water Loss Percentage and NRW together, targeting physical leaks and unauthorized consumption at the same time.

Two cautions carry over from measurement. Keep every NRW key result tied to a fixed denominator for the whole cycle, because switching between percentage of input volume and volume per connection mid-quarter turns a real result into an artifact. And avoid setting an NRW target and a Water Supply Resilience or Water Supply Reliability Index target that both assume full funding, since those investments compete for the same capital. Directional key results that acknowledge the trade-off are more credible than aggressive ones that quietly assume it away.

See OKR Examples for Water Management

KPI Categories

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