At the 2015 International Water & Climate Forum in December, participants from North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa learned about “on the ground” activities utilities are performing to plan for and address drought, sea level rise and a host of extreme weather events and future climate and urban uncertainties. More than 200 water sector representatives came away with ideas and inspiration for moving ahead to address climate change challenges to the world’s water systems.
Envisioned as a follow-up event to the 2010 Forum, where speakers discussed initial plans to understand and address potential climate impacts, the illustrations and case studies of how utilities and communities are becoming more resilient demonstrated just how much progress has been made in five years.
The Forum opened with a video highlighting several metropolitan mayors discussing the actions their cities are taking to become more climate resilient. Setting the stage for the rest of the Forum, opening speaker Professor Simon Pollard of Cranfield University in the U.K. said that the disruptive opportunity afforded by climate change can help utilities plan across the broader context of risk management and sustainability. Improving resilience will be a fusion of innovation and foresight in the face of risks, he said. Both he and Rob Pritchard of the Calgary Utilities and Environmental Protection Department touted past and forthcoming reports from the Water Research Foundation on risk governance as helpful resources for implementing best practices in risk management planning.
Closing speaker Pat Mulroy, a senior fellow at the Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and at the Brookings Institution, said the discussions at the Forum made clear that despite the uncertainties of the future, the water utility industry has demonstrated it is reimagining, reinventing and re-envisioning itself to the challenges presented by climate change. A key thread of the Forum, she noted, was one of strategic partnerships between different levels of government, watershed neighbors, technology companies, customers and beyond. This thread was one of many from the event that demonstrated that utilities are transitioning from reactive to proactive solutions to become more resilient. Nearly every Forum speaker discussed the role of partnerships in their resilience and strategic planning to address climate change impacts. Paula Verhoeven of the Rotterdam Department of City Development discussed the importance of communicating with citizens and partnering with many other stakeholders in the public and private sector, and Lars Therkildsen, CEO of Greater Copenhagen Utility in Denmark, noted that implementation of the Copenhagen’s management plan for future extreme rainfall “cloudburst” events will require partnerships between the city, the utility and private land owners.
Another thread woven through several presentations was the need for human capital, human acumen and social strategies that can be connected to infrastructure strategies. Speakers from outside the water utility sector, including Felicia Marcus, chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, and J. Carl Ganter, director and co-founder of the Circle of Blue, made this point, as did utility managers Cedric Grant of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans and Ray Hoffman of Seattle Public Utilities.
Later this spring, AMWA will release a report on the Forum’s key themes and future milestones for the water utility sector’s climate resilience progress.
The mayors’ video and speakers’ presentations and podcasts are available for free at the Forum website: www.waterclimateforum.org.