Bankability refers to the financial sustainability of projects to be financed on market terms, and considers inter alia creditworthiness, performance, resilience, sustainability and growth prospects.
Costing: refers to the assessment of the expected costs of an operation, covering both the capital cost (as one-off investment or as an annual repayment schedule) and/or the recurrent operational expenditures, as the case may be, as well as financing costs.
Financing: financing provided with the expectation of a financial return, in the form of interest or dividends.
Funding: refers expenditure derived from the collection of fees, tariffs, subsidies and other income.
Conditional guarantees: are guarantees of loan repayment recognizing certain unknown conditions or circumstances.
Pooled financing: refers to the aggregation of individual project loans by the legal entity which raises the money for the individual project loans.
Project financing: generally, this refers to the financing of a standalone project, which has revenue directly associated with it.
Renewable freshwater resources: Total freshwater resources that are offered by the average annual natural inflow and runoff that feed each hydrosystem (catchment area or aquifer).
Reserves: are money or other legal commitments set aside to be used to cure defaults in obligations of the borrower.
Revolving funds: are pools which when the repayment of individual project loans is made, those repaid funds are made available for new project loans.
Sanitation: delivery of sanitation services (toilets, latrines, etc.), wastewater collection and treatment. The notion covers both on-site (or off-grid) and centrally piped services.
Water abstraction (or withdrawal): is water physically withdrawn from the environment. Part of that water may return to the environment. Typically, a number of industries abstract water for cooling purposes – then return the water to the environment in a suitable condition for use by other purposes. However, a significant part of the water abstracted from the environment is consumed.
Water consumption: water use that reduces either the quantity or quality of water that is returned to the environment. Consumed water is not necessarily abstracted from the environment (it can be generated from other sources, e.g. recycled water). A variety of water uses do not consume water (e.g. shipping, swimming, the environment). These uses should however be taken into account in water resource management (e.g. through environmental flow and quality requirements for environmental purposes).
Water losses, leakage, non-revenue water: The first two are synonymous and refer to physical losses, while the latter also includes water that is supplied but not paid for.
Water security: achieving and maintaining acceptable levels for four inter-related water risks: too little water (scarcity and droughts), too much water (floods), too polluted water (lack of suitable quality water for a particular purpose), and degradation of freshwater ecosystems. These risks can also increase the risk of (and be affected by) inadequate access to safe water supply and sanitation.
Financing a Water Secure Future
OECD Studies on Water
