IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0169488.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth A Mack
  • Sarah Wrase

Abstract

While basic access to clean water is critical, another important issue is the affordability of water access for people around the globe. Prior international work has highlighted that a large proportion of consumers could not afford water if priced at full cost recovery levels. Given growing concern about affordability issues due to rising water rates, and a comparative lack of work on affordability in the developed world, as compared to the developing world, more work is needed in developed countries to understand the extent of this issue in terms of the number of households and persons impacted. To address this need, this paper assesses potential affordability issues for households in the United States using the U.S. EPA’s 4.5% affordability criteria for combined water and wastewater services. Analytical results from this paper highlight high-risk and at-risk households for water poverty or unaffordable water services. Many of these households are clustered in pockets of water poverty within counties, which is a concern for individual utility providers servicing a large proportion of customers with a financial inability to pay for water services. Results also highlight that while water rates remain comparatively affordable for many U.S. households, this trend will not continue in the future. If water rates rise at projected amounts over the next five years, conservative projections estimate that the percentage of U.S. households who will find water bills unaffordable could triple from 11.9% to 35.6%. This is a concern due to the cascading economic impacts associated with widespread affordability issues; these issues mean that utility providers could have fewer customers over which to spread the large fixed costs of water service. Unaffordable water bills also impact customers for whom water services are affordable via higher water rates to recover the costs of services that go unpaid by lower income households.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth A Mack & Sarah Wrase, 2017. "A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0169488
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169488
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169488&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0169488?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. REYNAUD Arnaud, 2006. "Assessing the impact of public regulation and private participation on water affordability for poor households: An empirical investigation of the French case," LERNA Working Papers 06.09.202, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    2. John W. Sawkins & Valerie A. Dickie, 2005. "Affordability of household water and sewerage services in Great Britain," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 225-244, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tamara S. Wilson & Nathan D. Van Schmidt & Ruth Langridge, 2020. "Land-Use Change and Future Water Demand in California’s Central Coast," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-21, September.
    2. López-Ruiz, Samara & Tortajada, Cecilia & González-Gómez, Francisco, 2020. "Is the human right to water sufficiently protected in Spain? Affordability and governance concerns," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Tihitina Andarge & Yongjie Ji & Bonnie L. Keeler & David A. Keiser & Conor McKenzie, 2023. "Environmental Justice and the Clean Water Act: Implications for Economic Analyses of Clean Water Regulations," NBER Chapters, in: Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, volume 5, pages 70-126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Oleg O. Smirnov, 2023. "Assessment of the Impact of Transparency and Affordability of Technological Connection on the Developer's Decision on New Construction in Russian Cities," Journal of Applied Economic Research, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 22(2), pages 355-380.
    5. Beard, Victoria A. & Mitlin, Diana, 2021. "Water access in global South cities: The challenges of intermittency and affordability," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    6. Solis, Miriam & Bashar, Samira Binte, 2022. "Social equity implications of advanced water metering infrastructure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Elham Erfanian & Alan R. Collins, 2018. "Charges for Water and Access: What Explains the Differences Among West Virginian Municipalities?," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-27, October.
    8. Pan, Zehua & Brouwer, Roy & Emelko, Monica B., 2022. "Correlating forested green infrastructure to water rates and adverse water quality incidents: A spatial instrumental variable regression model," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    9. Melissa Heil, 2023. "The politics of owing: Accounting, water disconnection, and austerity urbanism in Detroit," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(3), pages 485-503, May.
    10. Smith, Steven M., 2022. "The effects of individualized water rates on use and equity," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    11. Zhang, Xue & Rivas, Marcela Gonzalez & Grant, Mary & Warner, Mildred E., 2021. "Water Pricing and Affordability in the US: Public vs Private Ownership," SocArXiv 7mc4r, Center for Open Science.
    12. Fagundes, Thalita Salgado & Cunha Marques, Rui & Malheiros, Tadeu Fabrício, 2024. "Are Brazilian water auction prices affordable for vulnerable families?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    13. Natalie R. Sampson & Carmel E. Price & Julia Kassem & Jessica Doan & Janine Hussein, 2018. "“We’re Just Sitting Ducks”: Recurrent Household Flooding as An Underreported Environmental Health Threat in Detroit’s Changing Climate," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-19, December.
    14. Martinez-Espiñeira, Roberto & Pérez Urdiales, María, 2024. "Water Affordability Measures Under Multiple and Non-Exclusive Sources in Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13395, Inter-American Development Bank.
    15. Thabang Lazarus Bambo & Anastassios Pouris, 2020. "Bibliometric analysis of bioeconomy research in South Africa," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 29-51, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gawel, Erik & Sigel, Katja & Bretschneider, Wolfgang, 2011. "Affordability of water supply in Mongolia: Empirical lessons for measuring affordability," UFZ Discussion Papers 9/2011, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    2. Martins, Rita & Quintal, Carlota & Cruz, Luís & Barata, Eduardo, 2016. "Water affordability issues in developed countries – The relevance of micro approaches," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PA), pages 117-123.
    3. Jessica J Goddard & Isha Ray & Carolina Balazs, 2021. "Water affordability and human right to water implications in California," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-24, January.
    4. REYNAUD Arnaud, 2006. "Assessing the impact of public regulation and private participation on water affordability for poor households: An empirical investigation of the French case," LERNA Working Papers 06.09.202, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    5. Martinez-Espiñeira, Roberto & Pérez Urdiales, María, 2024. "Water Affordability Measures Under Multiple and Non-Exclusive Sources in Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13395, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Pierce, Gregory & Chow, Nicholas & DeShazo, J.R., 2020. "The case for state-level drinking water affordability programs: Conceptual and empirical evidence from California," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    7. Martins, Rita & Quintal, Carlota & Teotónio, Carla & Antunes, Micaela, 2023. "Water affordability across and within European countries: a microdata analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    8. Arnaud Reynaud, 2010. "Private Sector Participation, Regulation and Social Policies in Water Supply in France," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 219-239.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0169488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.