Managing water loss
Reliable, safe, and sustainable water service for Calgarians is a priority for The City of Calgary. We are taking proactive steps to reduce water loss through the Accelerated Water Loss Program, which provides short- and long-term actions to address water loss. As the City continues to grow, investing in water loss reduction helps:
- Meet the growing demands of our city and regional customers
- Defer costly infrastructure expansion
- Reduce impacts on the natural environment and rivers
What is our water loss?
This is consistent with recent years, as loss has ranged between 24 and 20 per cent since 2019.
Another metric that helps us track and manage water loss is the Infrastructure Leakage Index (ILI). Think of it as a score that helps water utilities understand how well they are managing and fixing leaks in their pipes. The ILI for 2025 was 4.8.
While results from actions taken will take time to yield results, The City is aiming to reach an ILI of 3, (15%) by 2030.
Is our water loss high?
In late 2024, The City hired a consultant to complete a review on water use trends and water loss (locally and in comparable cities). This report noted that Calgary has one of the highest ILI values of the municipalities surveyed, emphasizing the need for ongoing water loss reduction programs. The full report is available here.
What are we doing about it?
Accelerated Water Loss Program
Improving our water loss will require sustained short- and long-term actions. Our response is a focused, three-part action plan under the Accelerated Water Loss Program. Actions that we’re taking to reduce water loss include:
- Improving measurement to better understand and address water loss
- Increasing proactive leak identification and repair to address active losses more quickly
- Accelerating renewal and maintenance, such as pipe replacement, to reduce future loss and risk
Improved measurement
The better we understand how and where water loss occurs, the more able we are to take strategic actions to address it. Activities to support this action include:
- Installing additional flow meters in the distribution system. The information these provide, combined with other updates to our metering program and leak survey findings, will help us better identify leaking pipes faster and prioritize repairs.
- Rolling out the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) program. Meter upgrading is underway in Ward 8 and is anticipated to be completed city-wide by 2030. AMI provides frequent, accurate meter data, which allows customer-side leaks to be detected earlier. This in turn reduces the risk of property damage and increased water bills. AMI allows The City to respond faster to leaks when needed as well as better identify and prioritize areas to survey, repair and renew our water infrastructure.
Leak detection and repair
Using a balance of internal and contracted resources, we continue to find and fix non-surfacing leaks. By increasing leak surveys and monitoring along our pipes, we have successfully identified more locations requiring repairs. In 2025, we surveyed 1,176 km of distribution mains, strategically focusing on areas with a history of breaks. 54 leaks were found and addressed. We also surveyed 1,257 copper service lines (these are primarily how water travels to a property from distribution main).
Renewal and maintenance
In 2025, The City more than doubled the length of water mains replaced for a total of 7.8 km, up from 3.2 km in 2024. Our efforts will continue to increase in future years as we plan to replace 10 km of water mains in 2026, and are targeting 15 km per year from 2027 through 2030.
Taking action today for long-term improvement
We expect this work to deliver gradual but meaningful results over time. Reductions in water loss in systems of similar size to Calgary’s typically occur over multiple years as improvements take hold. Calgary has seen similar patterns in the past, with elevated losses reduced by sustained efforts an investment. The actions we are taking now, along with future investments, will help achieve similar long-term results.