Water demand management: Türkiye implementation (Türkiye's experiences)

Household water demand analysis has been the focus of extensive research in numerous countries throughout the world. However, there is limited interest in this topic among researchers in Türkiye. This thesis aims to address this research gap by analyzing the significance of water tariffs in urban water management policies and estimating the household water demand in Türkiye, which is the responsibility of municipalities. The primary objective of this study is to test the validity of the findings in the literature regarding the price and income elasticity of household water demand, particularly in the three metropolitan cities of Türkiye. Using the Household Budget Survey 2015-2018 dataset provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), this study estimated water demand utilizing the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method. This thesis is organized into four main chapters, in addition to the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter delves into the theoretical foundation of the water industry, grounded in the natural monopoly theory. The second chapter presents a comprehensive framework of urban water management paradigms at both the national and international levels. The third chapter presents a detailed analysis of household water tariffs, average water prices, water consumption levels, and household characteristics for Türkiye's three largest cities, Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. Additionally, this chapter compares and contrasts the findings with various studies conducted worldwide. The findings in this chapter reveal that access to clean water and the financial burden of clean water on household budgets are considerably disadvantageous in Türkiye, especially for low-income households, when compared with many developed countries. In the fourth section, an estimation of household water demand is made for variables that affect water consumption, such as price and income elasticity, which are consistent with expectations in the economic literature. The price and income elasticities of water consumption were found to be low for the three major cities. Consequently, recommendations for water management are presented in the concluding section. Keywords Household Water Demand, Water Management, Water Industry, Local Government Finances