Climate change and the growing pressure on water resources demand increasingly reliable water and sanitation services, posing unprecedented challenges to supply systems. Technological innovation is essential, but insufficient if not accompanied by an integrated vision of management. In recent decades, the water sector has accumulated technical knowledge, operational experience, and innovation capacity, with methodologies, management frameworks, and best practices already demonstrated.
The non-revenue water indicator illustrates this reality clearly. According to the ERSAR Annual Service Quality Report (RASARP 2025), there are managing entities in Portugal with excellent performance levels, but the national average of non-revenue water is 26.5%, with differences ranging from less than 10% to more than 70%. This disparity reveals a sector that evolves at different speeds, although knowledge, methodologies, and technology are widely available.
The central question the article raises is why it continues to be difficult to transform knowledge into consistent results. The answer requires reflection on management models, skills, execution capacity, and knowledge-sharing mechanisms. Water systems are complex organisms that integrate thousands of physical assets, multidisciplinary teams, operational processes, information systems, and financing mechanisms, whose reliability depends on the coordinated functioning of all these elements.
The article advocates that the sector needs a "reset" in how it approaches water management, not to start from scratch, but to value what has already been learned and capitalize on existing best practices. The resilience of systems is not achieved during a crisis, but is built in advance through decisions made every day.
