Water Distribution Leakage as a Systems Failure: A Framework for Improved Management Protocols

Leakage from water distribution networks (WDNs) are one of the most persistent inefficiencies in urban water management. Global non-revenue water (NRW) volumes have remained broadly stable over two decades despite major technical investment in detection, pressure management, and pipe deterioration modeling, implying a structural obstacle that technical solutions alone cannot resolve. This review argues that the underlying reason is conceptual. Leakage has been treated predominantly as an engineering problem. In reality, it is the visible outcome of three interacting failure domains: physical infrastructure deterioration, climate-driven stress amplification, and governance and institutional inadequacy. No existing review integrates all three domains into a unified diagnostic framework. This paper introduces the Three-Domain Systems Failure Framework (TDSFF) as a structured diagnostic approach to the root causes of WDN leakage. A structured literature review of 58 peer-reviewed and authoritative sources, including gray literature, is presented. Eight comparative tables and five original figures synthesize evidence across global contexts from high-income OECD networks to Sub-Saharan African utilities. An operational four-step classification protocol enables practitioners to apply the TDSFF directly to real utility contexts. The framework and the protocol are presented as proposals. Key findings are as follows. Infrastructure deterioration is necessary but insufficient as an explanation for observed leakage levels. Climate change is increasingly observed to accelerate pipe failure rates through soil movement, thermal cycling, and altered pressure dynamics, with impacts underrepresented in current engineering design practice. Governance failures, including deferred maintenance cycles, absent regulatory NRW targets, and chronic underinvestment, explain the persistence of leakage independent of physical deterioration. Technical solutions achieve limited system-level impact when governance preconditions for sustained management are absent. The TDSFF is offered as a practitioner-facing diagnostic aid to identify the dominant failure domain and direct investigation accordingly. Relationships between the domains rest on observational evidence and are reported as associations, not as estimated causal effects.