The planning tool is intended to help plan the creation of new water systems or the expansion of an existing water supply by letting you create and compare future scenarios at various levels of detail. This guide will help you make the most of this tool.⁠

1) Create a Workspace for the appropriate level of detail and effort: Regional, System, or Asset level.

2) Create scenarios with basic parameters such as timeline, projected inflation and population growth, and unit costs.

3) Have the system calculate results so you can compare and contrast the impact of different service level targets and assumptions.

- The life-cycle cost it takes to reach the targets in your scenario.

- Costs split by year and by capital and operating expenditure.

- Learn how many people you can reach with service for the budget you have.

mWater's Water Supply Planning Tool is a Digital Public Good aimed to empower governments and service providers to take date-informed decisions, to build and compare different development approaches and scenarios, and to have data-driven discussions with donors and investors on how to maximize the impact of investment in water infrastructure. This planning tool was implemented in Haiti through the SIRWASH (Sustainable, Innovative and Rural Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Services) Program. By making it easy to create scenarios by entering some basic parameters and assumptions, clear projections can be made regarding both capital and operational expenditure. Utilities that have adopted digital asset management are empowered through more advanced scenario options which may take into account existing coverage, technological options and local development plans, and even allow for planning investments at the level of individual assets.

There are three different levels you can use the water supply planning tool at, depending on your needs and the level of detail you are able to go to: Regions, Systems, and Assets. Scenarios can be built in any of these approaches by creating a relevant planning workspace.

This is the fastest and least complex approach to scenario creation. You can set targets for coverage and calculate costs for a set of administrative regions. This is a good choice when you need to estimate the costs for achieving service level targets for your designated regions.

This level has medium-level complexity and allows you to calculate the costs and coverage for both new and existing water systems and point sources. This is a good option to use when you have mapped all existing water infrastructure in the region.

This approach provides the most detailed scenarios and requires the most detailed input. You can add planned assets individually and see how that impacts cost and population reached.

To create a Regional Workspace select Create New Workspace and then choose the Region option.

Then give the workspace a name and set some basic parameters:

- Start year

- End year

- Default Inflation Rate (2%)

- The target country, for example, Haiti.

- Then the Overall Administrative Region, for example, Les Cayes, Sud.

The overview page allows you to create and view plans, as well as change the workspace settings and details about planning units.

Before calculating any results, you need to Add a Plan from the navbar on the left.

The plan creation page is where you set the key parameters of a scenario. The inflation rate comes from the default setting of the workspace and you can override it.

The Water service levels section is where you can enter what percentage of the population currently has access to a piped water supply and what proportion has access to the basic water supply. You also need to enter what the target rate of access is at the end of the time period you specified in the workspace settings.

The Unit costs section is where you enter the one-time cost (Capital Expenditure / CapEx) and annual recurring cost (Operational Expenditure / OpEx) for both piped water supply and basic water supply. In other words, these are the costs that either a new piped water supply or basic water supply accrue in the year that they gain service, and then the annual cost from that point onwards.

The planning units, in other words the areas in your region, will use the piped water supply % and the basic water supply % you specified in the water service levels section, but in the optional settings you can adjust piped and basic supply rates for the start and end years individually.

You can also edit the plan from the toggle on the top right.

This will open the same popup used for setting up the plan initially. 

Use the system workspace when you want to make plans at the level of water systems, combining data from existing systems you have mapped as well as areas you can draw on the map for expansion.

The main difference is that instead of entering a target service level for the whole region, the targets are set based on systems, pipes, or water points that you plan explicitly.

To create a System Workspace select Create New Workspace and then choose the System option.

Then give the workspace a name and set some basic parameters:

- Start year

- End year

- Default Inflation Rate (2%)

- The target country, for example, Haiti.

- Then the Overall Administrative Region, for example, Les Cayes, Sud.

As with the regional approach, add a new plan from the navbar on the left.

The plan creation page is where you set the key parameters of a scenario. The inflation rate comes from the default setting of the workspace and you can override it. This section is similar to the regional plan.

The Water service levels section is where you can enter what percentage of the population currently has access to a piped water supply and what proportion has access to the basic water supply. You also need to enter what the target rate of access is at the end of the time period you specified in the workspace settings.

The Unit costs section is where you enter the one-time cost (Capital Expenditure / CapEx) and annual recurring cost (Operational Expenditure / OpEx) for both piped water supply and basic water supply. In other words, these are the costs that either a new piped water supply or basic water supply accrue in the year that they gain service, and then the annual cost from that point onwards.

In the next view you can add water systems, points and pipes to the plan. 

The easiest method is to use the import from mWater option to use what has already been mapped in the platform.

You can pick whether to import all asset types or just some. They are all filtered to be within the coverage area you have specified.

You can optionally also filter any pipes, water points and systems you import based on data.

You can leave this import as one baseline plan to see how costs evolve with population growth and inflation.

However, to plan expansion in this Plan or another scenario, use the Add Pipe, Add Water Point or Add Water System options.

The initial setup of the workspace is similar to the system approach, please follow the steps above.

The difference comes with the Unit Cost table and the addition of individual assets.

- Add at least one Unit Cost Table.

You can add entries one by one including the cost to create a new asset and the annual cost accrued in day-to-day use.

To make sure that the asset contributes to the service level calculation, make sure it has a location that falls within your planning units. To make sure that the capital expenditure is included in calculations, make sure the installation date is entered and falls within the timeline of the plan. This means you will want to enter installation dates for planned assets that are in the future.

The model allows for two calculation methods: Fixed and Scaled.

Fixed models produce a base amount applied to each asset type/subtype combination.

Scaled models for assets such as pipes where the cost of the asset can depend on the amount installed, such as cost per meter of pipe installed.

You can add assets one by one through the planning tool interface, add them from the mWater database, or import them using a spreadsheet. 

For each asset you need to choose the type, and write in a subtype if relevant, as well as add a location.

Once you have more than one plan in a workspace, you can use the prioritization view to find out which of the plans meets your current needs best. You can set a weight for four different aspects: Capital Expenditure, Operational Expenditure, Total Access and Piped Access. We strongly recommend setting the values so that they add up to 100 for better clarity of results. 

The larger the weight you put on an aspect, the more the score will increase for the plans where this aspect is performing well. For example, if keeping Capital Expenditure low is a high priority, you can give it a high weight. Then the plans which have a low total CapEx will get a higher score. Similar, if you want to find the plans that provide the lowest OpEx and highest Piped Access, you can increase the weights of those two aspects and decrease the other two.

Total CapEx: Total capital costs across all years of the plan.

If you want to bring data you've created in the planning tool to your other visualizations in mWater, for example to compare plans against actual achievements, you can find planning tool data as data sources under Tables.

Planning tool datasets are system tables so to access them first select Tables:

For more assistance, contact us at info@mwater.co or submit a Problem Report through the Portal.