# How the Municorn water loss index is calculated

URL: https://municorn.us/water-loss/methodology/

Every figure is either as-filed or computed from as-filed values, and each page states which.

**States differ in what they publish, so the pages differ in shape.** Texas requires a component water balance and
each utility's own water rates, so a Texas page carries a closure verdict and a dollar figure. Massachusetts
publishes two performance standards as percentages, so a Massachusetts page carries a comparison to the state and
to the system's own record instead. Neither shape is a degraded version of the other.

Four verdicts exist on the balance check. `closed`: components sum to the filed input. `failed`: they do not, by
a stated residual. `insufficient`: the check could not run because figures are missing — never to be read or
aggregated as a pass. `inapplicable`: the state does not collect those figures, which is not a disclosure gap.

## Method

- [How the water loss index is built](https://municorn.us/methodology/water-loss-index/): Every source, every computation, and every place the index refuses to produce a number — including why most filings are marked unverifiable rather than passing.

## Definitions

- [Apparent loss](https://municorn.us/glossary/apparent-loss/): Water that reached a customer and was never billed — the component of water loss that is recoverable revenue inside a budget year rather than a capital project.
- [Non-revenue water](https://municorn.us/glossary/non-revenue-water/): Water a utility produced and paid to treat but never billed anyone for, split into the part that is a revenue problem and the part that is a cost problem.
- [Real loss](https://municorn.us/glossary/real-loss/): Water that escaped the distribution system before reaching a customer, valued at what it cost to produce rather than at what it would have sold for.
- [Unaccounted-for water (UAW)](https://municorn.us/glossary/unaccounted-for-water/): The Massachusetts Water Management Act performance metric for distribution loss, and how it differs from the AWWA non-revenue water framework used elsewhere.

## Services

- [Reporting Sprint](https://municorn.us/services/reporting-sprint/): One recurring report — a state submittal, a council packet, a grant draw — assembled from your own records once and delivered on schedule from then on. Three weeks, flat fee.
- [Water Loss Recovery Snapshot](https://municorn.us/services/water-loss-recovery-snapshot/): Three weeks, one flat fee. We reconcile your meter reads, billing records and production data and hand you a ranked list of specific accounts and zones with dollars against each.

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