Leakage management, in its simplest terms, consists of two basic activities - trying to minimise the number of new leaks and bursts which occur each year, and minimising the run-time of the leaks and bursts that do occur. It is not a 'one-off' exercise, but an ongoing commitment forever. So it is necessary for each Water Service Provider to make a commitment to undertake all four of the activities shown as arrows in the 'four methods' diagram. However, economics also obviously plays an important part in this. The economic level of leakage can be defined as 'the level of leakage at which any further reduction would incur costs in excess of the benefits derived from the savings'.

The technique known as 'squeezing the box' consists of identifying payback periods of individual leakage management initiatives, and implementing those with the fastest payback on a priority basis. International experience shows that the shortest payback periods (or lowest $ spent per ML saved) usually arise from leakage management initiatives associated with speed and quality of repairs, pressure management and active leakage control. As these initiatives are implemented, the Annual Real Losses should gradually reduce (over a period of 3 to 5 years), and when no further cost-effective initiatives can be identified, the Infrastructure Leakage Index should stabilise at a value that reflects the inherent condition of the distribution infrastructure.