{"id":"france-water-service-performance","slug":"france-water-service-performance","name":"France Water Service Performance Dataset","description":"Annual water and sanitation service performance for French departments and France from 2008: all-in price per cubic metre, distribution network efficiency, linear leakage index, drinking-water compliance, unplanned interruption rate and mains renewal rate, from the SISPEA observatory. Reported as the median of what a typical service returns, with the number of services behind every figure published alongside.","methodology":"Aggregated by Hydrionis from the statutory annual returns of individual French water services. Each figure is the median across the services that reported that indicator, computed only where at least three did. A median rather than a mean because these distributions have long tails and a mean would track a handful of outliers rather than the typical service. Unweighted, because the SISPEA served-population field is empty on every record the API returns: rather than weight by a proxy and call the result population-weighted, Hydrionis aggregates without a weight and says so. The count of services reporting is published as its own series, so the basis of every median is visible as data rather than asserted in prose.","domains":["utility-performance","leakage","tariff","infrastructure","drinking-water"],"metricIds":["water-service-price-all-in","network-efficiency","linear-leakage-index","drinking-water-compliance-micro","drinking-water-compliance-physchem","mains-renewal-rate","supply-interruption-rate","water-services-reporting"],"subjectScope":"French departments and France","cadence":"annual","version":"1.0.0","released":"2026-08-25","changelog":[{"version":"1.0.0","date":"2026-08-25","summary":"First release.","additions":["Population-weighted service performance indicators from 2008."]}],"limitations":["A median over the services that made a return, not a population-weighted average and not a census. It answers \"what does a typical French water service report\", which is not the same question as \"what does a typical French household experience\": a department of many small rural services and one large urban one is described mostly by the small ones.","SISPEA response is voluntary in practice and varies by year. The services-reporting series must be read alongside the indicators to know how much of a department each figure describes.","These indicators are defined by French regulation and are not interchangeable with the English and Welsh measures of the same concepts. Network efficiency and the linear leakage index in particular are computed under different rules from the Ofwat leakage measures and must never be benchmarked against them.","A service spanning several departments is attributed to the department of its first commune rather than split, because the publisher does not provide a split and inventing one would fabricate a number.","The observatory has not released returns after 2019 through this API, so the series end there."],"observationCount":8209,"seriesCount":783,"subjectCount":102,"from":2008,"to":2019,"sourceIds":["fr-hubeau-services"],"units":["%","m³/km/day","per 1,000 subscribers/yr","services","€/m³"],"redistributable":true,"commerciallyReusable":true,"citation":"Hydrionis (2026), France Water Service Performance Dataset, version 1.0.0. Retrieved from https://hydrionis.com/data/datasets/france-water-service-performance/","downloads":[{"file":"/downloads/observations-utility-performance-fr-hubeau-services.csv","format":"CSV","label":"utility-performance observations from Hub'Eau / SISPEA (2,881 rows)"},{"file":"/downloads/observations-drinking-water-fr-hubeau-services.csv","format":"CSV","label":"drinking-water observations from Hub'Eau / SISPEA (2,144 rows)"},{"file":"/downloads/observations-tariff-fr-hubeau-services.csv","format":"CSV","label":"tariff observations from Hub'Eau / SISPEA (1,071 rows)"},{"file":"/downloads/observations-leakage-fr-hubeau-services.csv","format":"CSV","label":"leakage observations from Hub'Eau / SISPEA (1,070 rows)"},{"file":"/downloads/observations-infrastructure-fr-hubeau-services.csv","format":"CSV","label":"infrastructure observations from Hub'Eau / SISPEA (1,043 rows)"}],"apiPath":"/api/v1/datasets/france-water-service-performance.json","lastFetched":"2026-08-25","fields":[{"id":"water-service-price-all-in","name":"All-in water and sanitation price per cubic metre","definition":"Total price of water and sanitation service per cubic metre, including all taxes and levies, at a standard reference consumption.","unit":"€/m³","nativeGeography":["utility-area","county","country"],"comparabilityNotes":"An all-in price including standing charges, taxes and the sanitation component, which is a different quantity from the volumetric-rate-only metric `water-price-per-m3`: the two differ by the whole of the fixed charge and must never be plotted on one axis. A unit price at a fixed reference consumption, not an average bill. It includes standing charges apportioned over the reference volume, so a household consuming less than the reference pays more per cubic metre than this figure. Not comparable with bills stated in another currency without an exchange-rate assumption Hydrionis does not make."},{"id":"network-efficiency","name":"Distribution network efficiency","definition":"Volume billed or otherwise accounted for as a percentage of the volume put into distribution.","unit":"%","nativeGeography":["utility-area","county","country"],"comparabilityNotes":"A French regulatory indicator (P104.3). It is not the inverse of the English leakage measures and must not be converted into them: England and Wales report leakage as a volume per day and per property, computed from a night-flow water balance under different rules. Comparing a rendement with a litres-per-property-per-day figure compares two different calculations."},{"id":"linear-leakage-index","name":"Linear leakage index","definition":"Volume lost from the distribution network per kilometre of main per day.","unit":"m³/km/day","nativeGeography":["utility-area","county","country"],"comparabilityNotes":"A French regulatory indicator (P106.3), normalised by network length. The English and Welsh leakage-per-property measure is normalised by connections instead, so the two rank networks differently and cannot be placed on one scale."},{"id":"drinking-water-compliance-micro","name":"Drinking water microbiological compliance","definition":"Percentage of regulatory drinking-water samples in a supply that met every microbiological limit.","unit":"%","nativeGeography":["supply-zone","local-authority","county"],"comparabilityNotes":"Compliance is computed over the samples a supplier was required to take, and sampling frequency scales with population served. A small supply taking twelve samples a year and a city taking twelve thousand can both report 100%, and one failure moves the small supply far further. Compliance percentages are not comparable between supplies of very different size, and not comparable between countries whose sampling regimes and parameter sets differ."},{"id":"drinking-water-compliance-physchem","name":"Drinking water physico-chemical compliance","definition":"Percentage of regulatory drinking-water samples in a supply that met every physico-chemical limit.","unit":"%","nativeGeography":["supply-zone","local-authority","county"],"comparabilityNotes":"The parameter set behind a physico-chemical compliance figure differs between regulatory regimes, so the same percentage does not represent the same test in two countries. Within one regime, sampling frequency scales with population served, so small and large supplies are not directly comparable."},{"id":"mains-renewal-rate","name":"Mains renewal rate","definition":"Percentage of the distribution network replaced or renewed in a year, averaged over a rolling five-year window.","unit":"%","nativeGeography":["utility-area","county","country"],"comparabilityNotes":"A five-year rolling average by construction (French indicator P107.2), so it responds slowly and a single year of heavy investment will not move it far. Renewal rates are not comparable between networks of very different age and material."},{"id":"supply-interruption-rate","name":"Unplanned supply interruption rate","definition":"Number of unplanned interruptions to water supply per thousand connected subscribers in a year.","unit":"per 1,000 subscribers/yr","nativeGeography":["utility-area","county","country"],"comparabilityNotes":"Counts events per thousand subscribers. The English and Welsh measure of the same concept reports the average duration of interruption per property instead, so the two rank utilities differently and cannot be compared or converted."},{"id":"water-services-reporting","name":"Water services reporting","definition":"Number of water services that made a statutory performance return for an area in a given year.","unit":"services","nativeGeography":["county","country"],"comparabilityNotes":"A count of services that reported, not of services that exist. Reporting is voluntary in practice and varies by year, so a fall in this count is a fall in coverage rather than in the number of water services."}]}