Public-private partnerships (PPPs) offer possible solutions for governments seeking to achieve better value for money and fund the investments needed to provide infrastructure and manage public services. Water-sector projects demand extensive, up-front and sunk investments, and inefficiency levels are often significant. This study conducted a systematic review of previous research on water sector PPP projects. The research design is innovative in that it relied on a hybrid methodology combining systematic quantitative, semantic network and narrative analyses. The literature review protocol applied found 122 relevant studies published in top journals. Five key topics within water-related PPP studies were identified: risk management, PPP contractual arrangements, financing and tariffs, infrastructure, and governance. The most important topic is risk management, within which individual scholars’ contributions were tracked. However, a consensus has not been reached about the best risk matrix for improving PPP contracts in the water sector.

公私合作伙伴关系（PPP）为寻求实现更高的物有所值并为提供基础设施和管理公共服务所需的投资提供资金的政府提供了可能的解决方案。水行业项目需要大量，前期和沉没的投资，而且效率低下的程度通常很严重。这项研究对以前有关水务部门PPP项目的研究进行了系统的回顾。该研究设计是创新的，因为它依赖于将系统的定量，语义网络和叙事分析相结合的混合方法。应用的文献综述方案发现了122篇相关研究发表在顶级期刊上。在与水有关的PPP研究中，确定了五个关键主题：风险管理，PPP合同安排，融资和关税，基础设施和治理。最重要的主题是风险管理，在其中跟踪单个学者的贡献。但是，关于改善水务部门PPP合同的最佳风险矩阵尚未达成共识。