MANAGEMENT OF WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS IN SLOVENIA AND ITS INTEGRATION ON THE STATE, REGIONAL AND LOCAL LEVEL

Abstract

In this article, a new approach towards the management of water supply systems that is under implementation in the Republic of Slovenia will be presented. Current approaches are based on the integration of data at a horizontal level within the organization that provides the water supply service. One of the tasks of the service providers has always been reporting to the regulating authority. With increasing importance of the water supply service, the reporting requirements for other services is ever increasing and therefore a new approach is under way which aims at reporting of an extensive set of nonaggregated data on water supply systems. The new approach proves to be very efficient especially regarding the improved analytical capacity for other sectors and activities beside the regulatory agency itself, such as: regional spatial planning, emergency services, health, etc. The work has put forward the importance of good definition and management of spatial units where the service is provided – agglomerations. Water supply systems were defined on the basis of their hydraulic homogeneity, which enables back-tracing of water from the pipe to the source. The resulting spatial database has strong analytical capacity and is already under implementation as a useful decision-support tool.