Water balance by country · Updated 2026-09-30
Non-revenue water in Vietnam: provincial water companies, the 15% target and the IWA water balance
How Vietnamese water supply companies calculate the IWA water balance, the national NRW reduction target, ADB and World Bank programme conventions, and local metering, pressure and treatment settings.
Calculator settings for Vietnam
- Units
- Metric
- Benchmark category
- Low & middle income
- Meter location
- At the property frontage; 1–3 m service pipe
- Supply
- Continuous in cities; some intermittent zones in provinces
- Reporting
- Ministry of Construction / VWSA; national target NRW 15% by 2025–2030 (Decision 2147); provincial WSCs
Vietnam has cut national non-revenue water (tỷ lệ thất thoát nước) from over 30% in the 2000s to the high teens today, with a national target of 15%. Ho Chi Minh City's SAWACO and Hanoi's HAWACO, together with provincial water supply companies, report NRW annually to the Ministry of Construction, and successive ADB and World Bank programmes have embedded the IWA water balance and DMA-based leakage management across the country.
Vietnamese specifics
- Household metering is near-universal in urban systems, with meters at the property frontage. Enter 1–3 m of service pipe.
- Meter fleets have been replaced aggressively in the larger cities; smaller provincial companies still have significant shares of meters over 10 years old. 4–7% under-registration is typical without test data.
- Illegal connections are less material than in some neighbouring countries, but bypasses at small businesses and boarding houses are worth a survey-based allowance.
- Rapid network expansion means the mains register lags reality — add an allowance in 'possible under-estimation of mains length' with ±5%.
- Surface-water plants on the Saigon, Dong Nai and Red rivers are 'traditional'; groundwater with chlorination is 'basic'.
Typical results
SAWACO and the best provincial companies now sit around ILI 2–4 (band A2–B); many provincial systems remain in band C with real losses of 150–300 litres per connection per day. Because the national conversation is framed in NRW percent against the 15% target, present both the percentage and the per-connection indicator — the second shows whether a company with high per-capita consumption is really performing.