Water intake fees as an instrument for sustainable water resources management

The main target of this paper is to develop the hypothesis that water intake fees can be an efficient tool for the management of water consumption in Poland. The sample used in the research consists of 600 municipal water operators with a market share over 80% in the municipal sector. The analysis comprises several tasks: firstly – the investigation of the relation between water intake fees and the structure of the costs of water provision; secondly – the investigation of the influence of fees on unit prices and a review of their changes over the last decade; and, thirdly – the analysis of demand elasticity in order to estimate demand reaction. The results obtained give an estimation of possible savings in water usage in Poland that would result from changes in the system of water intake. The analysis includes all the mechanisms of fee reductions, or exemptions for certain purposes, of existing water intake in Poland. This analysis compiles, compares and processes incremental results from several pieces of research led by the author over the last 10 years for the Ministry of the Environment the National and Regional Water Boards and also for the Institute for Meteorology and Water Management. Research was focused on the economic analysis of water usage from a more general view, however, water intake fees are taken into account in these papers, although not as separate targets for investigations.