Welcome to www.waterproject.info

This website compiles the results of a Master’s thesis project conducted by five graduate students at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara (www.bren.ucsb.edu). Our thesis is entitled, A Framework for Evaluating Water System Ownership and Management Alternatives. Our objective was to develop a framework to assist municipal decision-makers with evaluating alternative ownership and management structures for retail water distribution systems. Rather than present another biased argument either for or against water privatization, our framework seeks to provide an independent assessment of the trade-offs involved with four basic ownership and management transitions. The ownership and management structures we considered range from public ownership and management, through public-private partnerships, to ownership and management by private companies.

Please click on the tabs above to access our framework, read or download our full report, find out more about us, contact us, or to find links to sites that may be useful in your research regarding water system management