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dc.titleBeyond Violations: Measuring Compliance in Drinking Water Regulation
dc.contributor.authorPoli, Lucas Luiz
dc.contributor.authorCouleau, Anabelle
dc.contributor.authorPérez Urdiales, María
dc.contributor.authorTojal Ramos Dos Santos, Carolina
dc.contributor.orgunitWater and Sanitation Division
dc.coverageLatin America
dc.date.available2026-08-10T00:08:00
dc.date.issue2026-08-10T00:08:00
dc.description.abstractEnsuring safe drinking water depends not only on infrastructure but on effective regulatory compliance. This paper studies compliance with drinking water quality regulations through a three-layer framework that distinguishes among whether providers report monitoring data at all, whether those that do report collect the required number of samples, and whether the samples collected reveal violations of regulatory quality thresholds. Because each layer is a necessary condition for the next, failures in reporting and sampling can prevent official statistics from accurately reflecting underlying water quality risks. Using comprehensive administrative data from Brazil covering more than 5,500 municipalities between 2010 and 2022, we show that failures at each compliance layer are widespread, non-random, and systematically correlated with municipal characteristics. Non-reporting and under-sampling are concentrated in poorer and lower-capacity municipalities, while over-sampling is prevalent among larger providers. Over-samplers report fewer violations than municipalities that comply exactly with the prescribed sample count, a pattern that admits several interpretations and that the administrative record alone cannot adjudicate. The reported violation share is therefore jointly determined with sampling behavior, and this joint determination is systematically related to the municipal characteristics that also predict contamination risk. Treating reported violations as the sole measure of regulatory performance yields a misleading picture of drinking water safety and obscures the importance of monitoring compliance with reporting and sampling requirements alongside quality thresholds.
dc.format.extent38
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0014444
dc.identifier.urlhttps://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Beyond-Violations-Measuring-Compliance-in-Drinking-Water-Regulation.pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherInter-American Development Bank
dc.subjectMunicipal Government
dc.subjectWater Quality
dc.subjectDrinking Water
dc.subjectHealth
dc.subjectRegulation
dc.subjectInfrastructure Development
dc.subjectWater and Sanitation
dc.subject.jelcodeQ25 - Water
dc.subject.jelcodeO54 - Latin America • Caribbean
dc.subject.jelcodeQ53 - Air Pollution • Water Pollution • Noise • Hazardous Waste • Solid Waste • Recycling
dc.subject.jelcodeI18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health
dc.subject.jelcodeL51 - Economics of Regulation
dc.subject.jelcodeD82 - Asymmetric and Private Information • Mechanism Design
dc.subject.jelcodeH75 - State and Local Government: Health • Education • Welfare • Public Pensions
dc.typeWorking Papers
idb.identifier.pubnumberIDB-WP-01864
idb.operationRG-E1923
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