Water meter auditing and uncertainties

In the 1st stage of WG Leakage activities we concentrated in issuing questionnaires and gathering information regarding the state of leakage reporting in the different EU Member States (MS).
In the 2nd stage we started formulating a harmonized approach for reporting to the Commission and after lengthy consultation we arrived at a very good Position Paper. It remains to see how this will be received and adopted by the MS.
Now, we have to think what we can add so that EurEau makes a "root contribution" to this field.
Besides organizing some web meetings for the exchange of information and the spreading of good practices, I believe an important matter is to develop a minimum auditing scheme for the scientific estimation of the uncertainty characterizing the flow data involved produced by water meters and involved in the water balance.
This will not be connected to the future one-time reporting for 2026 but will be a long-term strategy for assessing the reliability of the data that we use.
I have tried to introduce this subject before the PP but it was not well accepted probably for 2 reasons: (1) our colleagues feared that this would introduce a heavy burden in view of the reporting obligation in 2026 and (2) some have already some kind of national auditing schemes to follow and did not want to have an extra one to be involved. Both are completely understandable.
Our association (Greece) has approached a university professor that is active in this field and he made a proposal for a relevant study. Unfortunately, our economics were not at the moment that strong to undertake on our own the full cost, so we took a step back.
If we agree as EU1 to try again, I see a first step to collect all the relevant information of national systems around EU, then to see if there is a common ground and then we could probably commission an experts team to draft the proposed scheme probably sharing some of the cost or/and involving more than one University experts. It looks like a long process but it can bring a lasting and very useful outcome.

Questions coming from the webinar on leakage

What is everyone's experience - how do you distinguish between leakages and unmetered water consumption, eg: firefighting water, to establish the actual percentage of leakage? Do you also measure the firefighting water consumption?

Water meter auditing and uncertainties