The moment you get home and turn on the television or pick up the newspaper, arresting headlines grab your attention. And water has been taking prime spot in breaking news – now more than ever before. Here’s just a small sample:
“Texas drought forces a town to sip from a truck” (New York Times, 3 Feb 2012)
“Thousands stranded by floods in eastern Australia” (CNN, 4 Feb 2012)
“Thai economy shrinks 9.0% after floods” (Bloomberg, 20 Feb 2012)
Devastating water crises affect lives and damage infrastructure. And it’s happening all over the world. Some would argue that weather changes are unpredictable. Many others simply point to climate change.
Climate change has a direct impact on the world’s water resources. One country can experience excessive rainfall – leading to floods – in one region, and a lack of water – resulting in water scarcity – in another. This results in a universal challenge for water planners and providers. Increasing demand for water, arising from rapid urban population growth, is coupled with unreliability of water supply from extreme weather changes.
The main challenge now lies with city planners, and water and stormwater utilities. In the face of increasing demand for water, uncertainties in water supply and escalating risk to their infrastructure, water supply portfolios need to be reevaluated. Pressing issues, such as threats of coastal floods and fast-rising sea levels overtaking low-lying coastal areas, also demand urgent attention from urban planners to rethink flood protection strategies.
Paradigm shifts are now necessary. International governmental bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) have correctly changed their emphasis from disaster response to risk management. This includes the improvement of flood forecasting and warning systems in reaction to climate change.
There are a few key considerations in developing a holistic strategy to prepare for climate change crises:
1. WHILE YOU MAY HAVE TO TAKE REFERENCE FROM OLD DATA, BE READY FOR NEW ISSUES.
There is no one absolute way to react to climate change. In planning risk management strategies, existing data must be referenced together with anticipation of the range of potential future climate conditions. Take the UK, for example. In anticipation of the risk and impact of flooding on lives and infrastructure, the UK’s water regulator, Ofwat, has commissioned water utility firms such as Thames Water to carry out flood resilience tests on critical water and wastewater treatment works. In these tests, allowance for future climate change is also taken into consideration to protect against infrastructure damage and ensure continued flood-related security within the region.
Paul Harmer, Black & Veatch Chief Engineer and Project Manager for the partnership with Thames Water, said, “This project demonstrates forward planning by Ofwat to reduce and manage flood risk. It is a good example of how government and industry can work together to protect infrastructure against the impact of climate change. Having a good flood risk management plan reduces the impact of climate change and can make all the difference between sustainability and destruction.”
2. SEE THE BIG PICTURE.
Global population growth, energy consumption, water issues and food production – each of these has an impact on the environment. Water supply options, enhanced water efficiency, wastewater reclamation and flood risk management are essential in an integrated water plan. Considering these can result in higher return of investment for water infrastructures as they anticipate changes in water patterns and address potential impending water scarcity.
3. BE OPEN TO SHARING AND RECEIVING.
The level of risk management related to climate change varies across countries. For example in the UK, the WHO notes that standards of protection are set according to damage potential of each flood risk area, making allowance for anticipated sea level rise over the lifetime of the structures. A cost-benefit analysis is then used to justify new defense standards. For national critical infrastructure, the return period used for design is 200 years.
New guidance in the UK now requires allowances to be made for the risk that river flooding may increase over the next century as a result of climate change. The high cost of these adaptation works for riverside towns has led to a sharing of the cost of defense improvements between the UK government (the traditional source of funds) and other sources of community funding.
In the Netherlands, the catastrophic impacts of failure of the system of seawalls protecting the country from ocean flooding justify designs for return periods of up to 10,000 years. One of the most devastating coastal floods ever happened in 1953, claiming the lives of more than 2,000 people in Holland, Great Britain and Belgium. The Netherlands, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, was by far the worst affected. This gave rise to extensive coastal flood protection works to strengthen sea defenses and resulted in the engineering wonder, Delta Works.
In Germany, main rivers were canalized to protect major urban areas against floods for return periods ranging between 50 and 100 years. Dikes in Hungary have been designed for return periods of 100 years. In Finland, agricultural areas are protected for return periods of 20 years and residential areas for 50 years.
Move further east, and there are regions like Western Australia suffering from one of the worst impacts of climate change. It is estimated that Western Australia will experience a 40 percent decrease in rainfall by 2060. To address this, the Water Corporation of Western Australia developed a plan to include water conservation and efficiency, community water recycling, desalination, and catchment management, among other water supply initiatives. This has resulted in a more climate-resilient region, even as the population of Western Australia is expected to double in the next 50 years.
Over in Southeast Queensland, water stress from a seven-year drought in Brisbane has led to a multi-pronged approach to address water shortages. Public education, water conservation, restrictions on water use, development of new groundwater sources, ocean desalting and extensive water recycling are all efforts to help the city mitigate water stress issues.
4. DIVERSIFY YOUR PORTFOLIOS.
Traditional water supplies are no longer adequate, especially in countries dependent on regular rainfall. Water infrastructures need to stretch existing water supplies, and planners need to think of creative ways to reuse wastewater and avoid wastage.
New water sources demand closer evaluation. These sources include groundwater, stormwater runoff, desalination and interregional transfers. Unique treatment and transportation challenges with alternative sources dictate that ongoing innovation is necessary to develop advanced technologies to address them. This is an aspect a country with no natural aquifers – Singapore – has already had a head start on, in order to reduce dependence on imported water. With its own brand of treated, high-grade reclaimed water and two desalination plants, Singapore is a living proof point of how diversifying its water portfolio has greatly aided in its goal to achieve water self-sufficiency in another 50 years.
Leading global water providers are developing innovative approaches to build up resilience to climate change. However challenging it is, with good integrated water management principles and an openness to water diversification, we are in a better position to protect and preserve our future.
Published originally on Black & Veatch Solutions.
