Abstract
Although drinking water provision and sanitation have long been considered as natural monopolies, the ongoing liberalisation of public services in the European Union is also influencing the water sector. In the Netherlands, the liberalisation trend has led the actors responsible for drinking water provision, wastewater collection, and surface water quality to start benchmarking processes in order to make the performance of the sector transparent and encourage learning across organisations. Benchmarking is regarded as what (1997) characterise as “a process for identifying and importing best practices to improve performance”, and the organisations involved have chosen for what (1996) categorise as a combination of ‘performance benchmarking’ and ‘competitor benchmarking’: comparison of performance measures across organisations that deliver the same product or service.
On secondment at Cemagref, Groupement Montpellier, until the end of 2008.
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Bots, P.W.G. (2008). Benchmarking in Dutch Urban Water Management: An Assessment. In: Pahl-Wostl, C., Kabat, P., Möltgen, J. (eds) Adaptive and Integrated Water Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75941-6_15
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