This paper compares efficiency scores from the data envelopment analysis (DEA), stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), and stochastic non-parametric envelopment of data (StoNED) methods in the context of regulating South African water utilities. We estimate cost efficiency based on cross-sectional data from 102 South African water utilities in the period 2013/14. We compare the impact of methodological choices on the efficiency scores. For StoNED, we compare scores from two different estimation techniques (method of moments and pseudolikelihood).

This study investigates the impact of groundwater contamination on educational outcomes in India, using variations in the geographical coverage and timing of safe government piped water schemes. The study is based on survey data from public schools in Assam, one of India’s most groundwater-contaminated regions. It is found that prolonged exposure to unsafe groundwater is linked to increased absenteeism, grade retention, and lower test scores and CGPA. Additionally, the researchers use a nationally representative household survey to study the effect of arsenic contamination.

The interplay of climate change, upstream hydropower development, and local water engineering interventions for agricultural production contributes substantially to the transformation of waterscapes and water scarcity in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. This paper aims to examine how these dynamics are linked to the paradigm shift in water management in An Giang and Ben Tre, the two ecologically distinct provinces that face serious water scarcity in the delta.

Environmental Services include all contributions of nature to humans, and these are relative according to the context and the existence of alternatives (IPBES 2019). Ecosystem degradation jeopardizes the sustainable provision of these services. In this context, Payne for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes arose as policy instruments that promote pro-environmental land use through financial incentives for actions that improve, maintain, or maximize the provision of ES (Kim et al. 2016). 

Improper solid waste disposal practices have negative consequences on the environment and the health of residents. While several factors have been blamed for poor solid waste disposal practices in most developing countries, household socio-economic and housing characteristics have received less attention in the scholarly literature in terms of how they affect residents’ waste disposal practices.