Assessing the Performance of a California Water Utility Using Two-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 144, Issue 4
Abstract
Two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology was applied in this study to assess the performance of individual districts of a California water utility for calendar year 2014 (CY2014). A bootstrap technique involving the construction of confidence intervals was implemented to overcome the deterministic nature of conventional DEA, and exogenous variables, such as the number of connections and the total annual precipitation in each district, were incorporated into the model to help identify key factors affecting technical efficiency. Two different DEA models were developed to compare the financial and production performance efficiencies of the districts. Although several districts performed weakly from a production perspective, overall the results indicated the strength and high performance of the utility. The findings of this study are expected to provide a useful way to identify the strengths and weaknesses of individual districts and guide subsequent managerial improvement initiatives.
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Acknowledgments
The authors greatly appreciate the funding provided by the California Water Service Co. for this project. This paper is an extended version of a conference paper originally presented at the ASCE EWRI 2016 & 2017 Conference.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 144 • Issue 4 • April 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 7, 2017
Accepted: Oct 10, 2017
Published online: Jan 29, 2018
Published in print: Apr 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Jun 29, 2018
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